Prevention of Obesity among Adults and Children in United Kingdom - Term Paper Example

Prevention of Obesity among Adults and Children in U.K al Affiliation) Executive summary What is obesity? According to American Heart Association, obesity can be defined as a condition where one is above his or her ideal weight. Individuals with a body mass index or BMI above thirty are obese. Obesity emerges as an unfortunate issue that has been gradually increasing across the globe. In the UK, as Penn and Kerr (2014) present, 30% of all children aged 2-25 years are obese. The paper further indicated that obesity in early childhood translated in increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer later in life. The paper proposes various multi-level intervention that the society needs to adopt in order to contain the spread of obesity, which has had chronic effects on children and youths, let alone the adults. The multi-level intervention program covers various spheres of a child’s or a youth’s social life, which include the family, the community and the culture. The research also centers on emotional health, to boost self-esteem, as a key strategy in mitigating obesity increase in the United Kingdom and the rest of the world as well. The paper equally proposes a strategic need for the government intervention, for instance through the development of a health policy covering obesity. There are apt institutional and home-based measures that the populace can adopt to prevent obesity among children and adults in the U.K. Introduction Consequences of obesity Social consequences- Childhood obesity Childhood obesity has consequences that majorly touch on the children’s social life (Dietz, 1998). Obese children often face social discrimination. In the course of the children’s growth, the effects of discrimination set into them especially because they live in societies that tend to gauge people by how thin they are. With time, they end up finding it hard to participate in activities such as dancing which is stereotyped to be associated with slim individuals. The first casualty in the life of an obese child usually is their self-image. Their self-esteem might remain intact but their self-image diminishes as they grow (Dietz, 1998). Studies have intimated that young children would prefer thin friends to fat ones and this further backs the idea that obese children are very likely not to fit in the social circles. Other children view obese children as lazy, which might not be the case but still it gets to the head of the children. Health consequences- Adulthood obesity Obesity in adults usually touches more on the medical implications that come with it. This is not to say that obese children are in a better medical condition but as one ages, some health issues that might not have presented themselves at a younger age catches up with them. An obese adult is at a much higher risk of contracting lifestyle diseases than a thinner counterpart. According to Kiess & Wabitsch, (2004), obesity raises blood cholesterol and the blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Too much cholesterol is not good for the body and this may result into cardiovascular diseases. The high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol is not as bad but obesity lowers it and as such puts the obese individual at higher risk of contracting diseases of the lower heart and stroke. Economic consequences of obesity Obesity comes at a high cost to the individuals, their families and the nation as well. Enrolling into gyms and hiring instructors is such an expensive venture that the obese try to undertake in order to lose weight ( Finkelstein, et al., 2004). Nutritionist advice does not also come cheap. The government on the other side invests a lot of the taxpayers’ money in programs ( Finkelstein, et al., 2004)initiated to help curb obesity. This makes it very expensive and it is worse for people who cannot afford it. Intervention Effectiveness of Work and school-based intervention for the prevention of overweight childhood and adult obesity Nutrition, diet, healthy eating School-based interventions can curb obesity and overweight conditions at three levels. The first level entails facilitating good nutrition, diet and healthy eating among children within the school setting. Children spend most of their time in school during weekdays. For this reason, their eating habits are dependent on the kind of dietary atmosphere ascribed to the school. While a small number of children carry packed lunches from their homes, majority eat from the school cafeteria. It is the responsibility of the school to ensure that they offer students low-calorie foods. These foods ought not to espouse an increase in weight amongst its students (Kiess & Wabitsch, 2004). The cafeteria ought to have a capacity-building framework on what causes obesity and the adverse effects ascribed to this condition. Physical education At the second level, school-based interventions ought to facilitate physical education among children. This can be done through gym sessions and sporting activities. Gym sessions ought to be inculcated into the curriculums of schools such that each day, students have a session during which they can exercise. Exercise coaches need to be hired to guide children appropriately on the kind of exercises that are good for increasing their bodies’ metabolism. Similarly, by associating with a particular sport and committing to it, a child is bound to constantly engage in an activity that burns down excess calories in his/her body, consequently preventing the body from storing these calories; a fete that would facilitate the onset of obesity. Work premises ought to develop a culture that integrates physical exercise amenities in their enterprises. This way, once individuals complete their busy schedules at work, they can work out and keep in shape (Kiess & Wabitsch, 2004). At the third level, schools should monitor their vending machines. By having vending machines that dispense healthy foods like fruits and milk, children are bound to develop a culture of consuming such foods. Junk food is by far the greatest contributor to obesity amongst children. The number of vending machines that dispense junk food and snacks should also be limited in schools. This would limit students’ access to junk within the institutional set-up (Koplan, Liverman, & Kraak, 2005). On the counter-argument, businesses have to make profits and would tend to lodge campaigns that vend their products. Effectiveness of home-based intervention for the prevention of adult and childhood obesity Nutrition, diet and healthy eating The home ambience influences the way children grow up and the habits they develop as they grow up and the dietary practices adopted by adults. Parents have the greatest influence on the dietary habits of children. The dietary patterns and food consumption patterns of children are formed by the food beliefs and dietary habits of their parents. The key to home-based intervention is adhering to a strict diet and promoting healthy eating within the family set up. Adults ought to ensure that they adopt daily menus that nutritionists deem healthy and adhere to these diets (Healey, 2009). Parenting styles/education Healey (2009) intimates that parents can also teach their children healthy dietary habits; during the pre-school age, children ought to be encouraged to consume vegetables as the preferred food. Rewards and incentives can be offered for finishing meals that have a high vegetable and fiber content. Parents can also teach their children, which foods are healthy, and which ones are not, as well as the health benefits attributed to eating healthy diets. Additionally, the family can uphold a nutrition plan that entails controlled food consumption by encouraging the habit of consuming food only during family mealtimes (Healey, 2009). Policy on food/exercise Homes ought to have elaborate policies that guide the food consumption habits of their families. By strictly adhering to these policies, parents can ensure that children grow up in an ambience that motivates them to make healthy food choices. Again, parents may play a very vital role in determining what their children take when they are home. However, it is general knowledge that most parents love answering even the smallest of their children’s whims. When it occurs to a parent that their kid does not eat when given healthy foods, they might just compromise and give them the junk food they desire. They might want their kids to live healthy, of course, but neither would they want to sabotage their children’s happiness. Apart from these, there are low-income families that cannot afford healthy foods. These healthy diets are more expensive as compared to the fast foods that they may opt for to sustain themselves. Effectiveness of primary-care intervention for the prevention of overweight adults or childhood obesity Counseling According to Friedman, (2011), Primary care facilities can effectively curb childhood obesity by advising both adults and children placed at care centers on the need to consume healthy diets. By highlighting the adverse effects ascribed to obesity, primary care professionals can help such individuals to understand why it is important for them to avoid the consumption of calorie-dense diets if they look forward to avoiding health complications. Parents can also be counseled in respect to the kinds of diets they are supposed to adopt in their homes (Friedman, 2011). Referral to nutritionists Primary care-givers can also refer extreme cases of obesity to nutritionists. As professionals, nutritionist are bound to evaluate the level of gravity ascribed to an individual’s weight problems and establish the best approach of dealing with the individual’s problem. Primary care centers have elaborate associations with experienced nutritional experts and are instrumental in giving the best referrals, depending on the specific requirements of each individual (Healey, 2009). Cost effectiveness Primary care interventions also have the advantage of being cost-effective. Most nutritional and expert programs offered by nutritionists are costly. Individuals from poor or average families are not able to pay for such programs. Primary care centers give sufficient care, health pans and rehabilitative exercises that are affordable (Koplan, Liverman, & Kraak, 2005). The government has invested a lot in these primary care programs and it shows a bold step towards preventing and containing obesity. There are people, however, who do not even know about the existence of such programs and some who have an attitude towards them due to stigmatization. The programs are there all right, but how many people access them or are accessed by them? What is being done to curb adult and childhood obesity? National programs In a bid to counter childhood obesity, five institutes ascribed to the National Institutes of Health joined to establish and promote a program for preventing obesity in 2005. The program has grown and is currently supported by dozens of state and national health care organizations such as Mutual of Omaha, Wal-Mart, Univision Communications, Alltel, Delphi and others. The key to the program’s success is actively engaging community leaders and parents in influencing the diet and exercise decisions of their children in new ways. The program is unique among other initiatives that prevent obesity among the youth because its initiatives are focused on caregivers and parents-the primary group that influences adults and children (Koplan, Liverman, & Kraak, 2005). School-based Policies and programs Various school programs are geared towards encouraging healthy lifestyle habits among children, including physical activity and healthy eating. Certain school programs include lifelong wellness as a main instructional goal of their schools’ improvement plans. School board members actively promote these wellness goals by personally participating as well as sponsoring health-related school events and activities. Such programs extend the meaning of wellness to physical activity and nutrition to include emotional and social health, school health services and much more. These programs secure the support and backing required for proper implementation. Community and Social Programs Communities currently recognize that obesity is a major health concern in the country. Various community-based initiatives have been developed across the country to address the issue of childhood obesity. The strategies adopted by these community and social programs focus on four areas. To begin with, they facilitate access to fresh and nutritious foods; they create common markets that sell fresh foods and vegetables at affordable prices. They also facilitate access to safe places for individuals to exercise, play and walk (Friedman, 2011). Various community programs have pooled resources to create playgrounds and parks that the populace can use for recreational purposes. The programs also provide prenatal and adult nutritional education to community members in a bid to ensure that parents adopt the best diets for their children. Finally, they publicly build the community’s will to advance real solutions. Summary/Conclusions Greatest effect on curbing child/adult obesity Programs National and community-based programs have proven to be the most influential instrumental in dealing with obesity within the community. The statistics on obesity are increasing at an astronomical rate and the scope of the problem is extensive. National programs target each and every location in the country but give priority to those regions that document the greatest need for immediate intervention (Whitacare, 2009). Policies Policies are also effective in addressing child obesity. Food policies are able to reduce obesity by altering food prices, improving the image ascribe to healthy food and shifting the community’s exposure to food. Prices and taxes affect the food choices of individuals. The past quarter century has seen fast foods become cheaper and healthy foods become more expensive. By decreasing the cost of healthy food and making junk food more expensive, the consumption balance can improved (Koplan, Liverman, & Kraak, 2005). References Friedman, L. S. (2011). Obesity. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press. Healey, J. (2009). The obesity epidemic. Thirroul, N.S.W.: Spinney Press. Kiess, W., Marcus, C., & Wabitsch, M. (2004). Obesity in childhood and adolescence. Basel: Karger. Koplan, J., Liverman, C. T., & Kraak, V. I. (2005). Preventing childhood obesity health in the balance. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. Penn, S, & Kerr, J 2014, Childhood Obesity: The Challenges for Nurses, Nursing Children & Young People, 26, 2, pp. 16-21. Whitacre, P. (2009). Community perspectives on obesity prevention in adults and children workshop summaries. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. Read More