Childhood Obesity: Health Promotion And Intervention Strategies (Research Paper Sample)

Childhood Obesity
(Author’s name)
(Institutional Affiliation)
CCHILHOOD OBESITY
Introduction
Childhood obesity has continued to be one of the major public health problems in Australia (Overweight & obesity Overview 2017). According to the report provided by Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in 2015, one out of four children in Australia was either overweight or obese which accounted for 26% or 1.2million of Australian children and the number seems to have doubled over the past few years(Overweight & obesity Overview 2017). Childhood obesity is one of the major causes of chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, stroke, some cancer, musculoskeletal conditions and other cardiovascular diseases (McMullen, 2014). Having in mind that, children are the future of the country, some interventions and prevention policies need to be addressed to prevent the future increase of obesity by the year 2020 (Cline, 2014). Obese children are normally at a risk of psychological torture due to associated ridicules and low self-esteem (McMullen, 2014).Currently, around 63% of Adults aged over 18 years in Australia are either overweight or obese (Overweight & obesity Overview 2017). This has been linked to the fact that, most of the adults who are obese were either obese or overweight in childhood (McMullen, 2014). Obesity in children has been increasing due to a number of reasons including the fact that children are eating more junk foods full of fat and sugars and spending less time in physical exercises and proper healthy eating (Hong et al, 2016). However, some of the obesity in children has been linked to environmental, genetic and hereditary factors (Cline, 2014).
Key Points
Childhood obesity has continued to be one of the major public health problems in Australia and globally at large. Kelsey et al (2014) defined childhood obesity as body mass index (BMI) that is greater than 95% of the age and sex of the child. According to the study by McMullen in 2014, the prevalence of adult obesity and overweight is estimated to be 35 % of world population. These treads go hand in hand with the prevalence of childhood obesity thus the impacts of early onset, prevention, and management of obesity is of great concern (McMullen, 2014).
Obesity in childhood is one of the major contributing factors of most of the adulthood metabolic and cardiovascular diseases (Cline, 2014). Most of these diseases include metabolic syndrome, diabetes, renal and retinal complications, obstructive sleep apnea, psychological conditions like low self-esteem, asthma, infertility, increased rates of some cancers and some psychiatric diseases (Pulgarón, 2013). The major contributing factors of childhood obesity include lack of physical exercises and dietary patterns (Pulgarón, 2013). Children are increasing eating foods with a lot of sugars and fat with physical exercises nearest to zero (Kelsey et al 2014). Long-term consequences like chronic diseases and psychological outcomes associated with obesity in children are avoidable (Pulgarón, 2013). Therefore there remains an opportunity to provide effective early interventions that can be used to improve the health of people at different stages of the lifespan (Pulgarón, 2013).
Health promotion and Intervention strategies
It is important to focus on those groups that are mainly affected when it comes to childhood obesity( Kelsey et al 2014). There are well known vulnerable groups in Australia than others. The risk of girls to be overweight or obese is higher than boys (Overweight & obesity Overview 2017). According to NSW statistics, Aboriginal children are 6% more likely to have obese than other children and 15 % more likely in rural areas than in major cities (Overweight & obesity Overview 2017). Focusing on those groups in terms of resources and public education is a major contributing factor of obesity reduction (Kelsey et al 2014). For example one of the Israel obesity strategies is aimed to reduce the obesity of Jewish by 10% and Arabs by 15%. This is because Arabs are more prone to obesity than Jews (Overweight & obesity Overview 2017).
Government intervention like increasing opportunities for physical activities is essential in preventing childhood obesity (Hong et al, 2016). This includes developing planning and guidelines for proper infrastructure development, developing healthy indicators in urban planning, support development of open green places and include health as an objective in planning laws(Hong et al, 2016).For example, both Queensland and Tasmania have health-specific planning laws. In Tasmania Land use and Approval Act have a planning development that enables people to be provided with open spaces for cultural wellbeing, social economic and proper health (Hong et al, 2016).
Another approach that can be used in the prevention of childhood obesity includes improving access to healthy food and limiting access to unhealthy food. ( Bonis et al,2014). For example, the City of Los Angeles passed a bill prohibiting the opening of new fast food in low-income areas. In relation to diet and feeding patterns, parents should be provided with proper education concerning the same(Ekelund, Hildebrand, & Collings ,2014). In addition, policies should be made to ensure healthy food is affordable. For example, Canada has food mail program that reduces cost and increases accessibility of nutritious food in rural areas (Ekelund, Hildebrand, & Collings ,2014).
Other methods include increasing physical activities like increasing physical education (PE) in schools and encouraging the parents to involve their kids in physical exercise ( Bonis et al,2014). Some of the physical exercises approach includes ensuring free or low-cost sports activities, educating awareness to raise physical activities and increasing behavior change programs( Bonis et al,2014). Other than that, influencing child can be...