Obesity: Development of Knowledge in the Health Sector - Essay Example

OBESITY OBESITY Development of knowledge in the health sector is based on evidence and has adopted the use of qualitativeresearch methods as opposed to other methods of research (Patton, 1992). Qualitative research has a characteristic of providing a variety of answers to questions concerning human problems and responses towards health (Patton, 1992). Most researches done by his method play a big role in the provision of evidence and generally has gained acceptance in the medical fraternity all over the world. By definition, a quantitative approach is a kind of research method whereby the researcher uses post-positivist claims in development of knowledge. A quantitative research method would use cause and effect thinking or would employ reduction of specific variables, hypothesis and questions. This paper will analyze three journals that have been written to discuss the obesity case and will look at the author’s framework of the problem, their purpose of the study and their rationale towards selection of the qualitative method. Ferda from the economics department in the Yeditebe University executed a research on the issue of obesity in Finland (Ferda, 2013). The research was aimed at finding out the causes of obesity in Finland that had become a national concern since every for every five people in the country two people were obese. The purpose of the research was to study the dynamics of obesity in Finland and provide evidence on how temporal obesity relates with health expenditure of the country and of individual persons (Ferda, 2013). The research also examined how unemployment was related to obesity since most of the unemployed people in the country were obese. Ferda also wanted to find out if urbanization had an impact or the rising cases of obese people living in urban centre in Finland. The research also was aimed at investigating how alcohol consumption and intake of calories, that were popular practices in Finland, led to obesity (Ferda, 2013). The researcher selected the qualitative method since the causes of obesity lied within the people and the best source of information was from the people themselves through simple methods such as interviews. The research also used testing and augmented causality tests to provide information on the possible causes of obesity on randomly selected people. According to my opinion, cases of obesity do not occur naturally since they are caused by the behavior of the person in terms of their food and beverage consumption. The qualitative research approach that the user used by employing tools such semi structured interviews narratives and life history and simple observation were sufficient and reliable in providing information that would prove the hypothesis. Elaine Anderson who was a student of nutrition and Jill Davies head of nutrition research centre in London carried out a research on obesity and published a journal in 2011 (Elaine & Jill, 2011). The journal addressed the prevelence, causes and health risks of obesity but also continues by looking at incentives of weight loss through commercial weight reducing diet and the health problems incurred during such diets. The purpose of the research done by the two authors was to fill the knowledge gap that existed in the causes of obesity in the UK and address the benefits of weight reduction through weight reducing diets. The research was also aimed at addressing constipation, which is a negative effect of commercial weight reducing diets. The researchers arrived at the decision of using the qualitative method of data collection due to nature of the research and the advantages that the method had over other methods of research (Elaine & Jill, 2011). The researchers stated that the simple tools to be used in the design such as in depth interviews, group discussions and ethnography were considerably cheap and provided sufficient information. They also argued that the information collected would be first hand and hence had a lot of originality in it. According to my opinion, the qualitative research method would provide enough information to address the topic in question since it has the advantages of being culturally salient to the participant and hence the probability of receiving getting information from the people is high. The research design is rich and explanatory in nature and hence getting the information was easy and the research question would be easily answered hence guiding the researchers into conclusion. Lukman, Dye and Blundell from the department of psychology in the university carried out a research on the relationship between diet and obesity in Chinese groups who are 13th worldwide in terms of numbers of obese cases (Lukman, Dye & Blundell, 2012). The purpose of carrying out the research was to investigate the reasons behind the increase of incidences of obesity in china by five times as compared to countries such as the UK and the USA. The research was also aimed at investigating the rate of diet fat consumption on the people who were obese. The research investigates whether the changes in culture due to modernization and westernization had any relationship with the increase in the obesity cases. The research also focused on investigating the relationship between chronic diseases such as coronary heart diseases, hypertension and diabetes mellitus (Lukman, Dye & Blundell, 2012). To provide information that would enable the researches answer their research questions, they decided to use qualitative research method. They choose to use interviews and participant observation where they would randomly observe the kind of food that obese people ordered in a restaurant and interview them. The researchers were contented that this method would provide information on the feeding habits of the obese people and an interview conducted on them would provide information on the health conditions they were experiencing (Lukman, Dye, & Blundell, 2012). The researchers also conducted a research on the cultures of the people and how they influenced their diets and this was done using narratives and life histories which is a tool used in qualitative research. According to my opinion, the methods selected were appropriate and would provide enough information that would lead the researchers to making conclusions on their research topic. Use of qualitative methods provides reliable information since most tools of research used involve In my higher Education, I would use the qualitative research method to carry out a research on obesity. Obesity is a condition, which is self, caused since all causes are as result of the eating behavior of the person. Having this in mind, the best research design would be the qualitative design since it is interactive and takes place in the natural setting. I would use in-depth interviews and observation as my methods of data collection since they would provide a platform to interact with the data source and hence provide accurate information. In conclusion, quantitative research is systematic rigorous and dependable since it involves critical self-scrutiny in production of explanation. It is therefore the most reliable method in terms of gathering information and proving hypothesis in the medical field. References Patton, M. Q. (1992). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. Newbury Park, Calif:Sage Publ. Lukman,L.,Dye,J.E. and Blundell, N,. (2012) .Relationship between diet and obesity in Chinese groups, British Food Journal, 100(1) ,3 – 9 Elaine, A.,& Jill, D.(2011). Obesity, weight-reducing programmes and constipation, Nutrition & Food Science, 99 (6), 303 – 306 Ferda, H., (2013) Dynamics of obesity in Finland, Journal of Health Studies, 40 (15), 644 – 657 Read More