Health Promotion and Obesity - Essay Example

?Health Promotion Table of Contents Overview 3 Part A 3 Health Issue Related To Lifestyle Behaviour That Is Obesity 3 2. The Individual Behaviour Change Approach and the Community Development Approach 5 2a. Compare And Contrast the Two Health Promotion Approaches 7 2b. Method of Dealing with Health Related Behaviour Or Lifestyle Related Health Issue Chosen By The Approaches 8 2ci. Policy Context 9 2cii. Policy Support 10 2cii. (a) Government Policy That Is Health Lives, Health People (DH 2010) and How It Supports Health Promotion 11 2ciii. The Nature of Health Information 11 2civ. The Nature of Health 13 2cv. Ethical and Cultural Considerations 13 3. Future Recommendation With Regards to Obesity 14 Part B 15 Individual Reflection 15 References 18 Bibliography 22 Overview The lifestyle of the people often tends to determine the occurrence of illness and at times lead people towards future illness. However, large part of the populace fails to adhere to the healthy lifestyle. For instance, obesity can be considered as the major risk factor for the cardiovascular diseases, osteoarthritis, cancer, premature mortality, type two diabetes mellitus and several other medical conditions (University of Maryland, 2011). Part A 1. Health Issue Related To Lifestyle Behaviour That Is Obesity Lifestyle can be described as a way through which the people generally invest in health. There are varieties of health related habits such as material factors along with psychological factors that can have an impact upon a person’s health. The health promotion encompasses variety of mechanism and implementation strategies that include fostering self-care, risk factor detection, health enhancement and health maintenance. It is to be noted that the major tasks of the health promotion involve both to understand the health behaviour and the transformation of the knowledge about the behaviour into a few important strategies for the enhancement of health. There are various lifestyle factors that affect the health of the individuals. It has been noted that the behavioural and the social issues that have an impact upon the health include smoking, diet, nutrition and alcohol. Obesity can contribute to the variety of health related problems such as heart diseases, high blood pressure, indigestion, diabetes and also cancer (Clemen-Stone & Et. Al., 2002). It has been evident that few basic behavioural approaches to health can help to dramatically change the risk and reduce the impact of such issue on the health of the individual. There are certain factors that are responsible for the health issues. Each and every individual endure a certain kind of lifestyle. A few may be living a healthy lifestyle while others may be living an unhealthy lifestyle. The health benefits of the physically active lifestyle are well documented and there are huge evidences which suggest that the regular activity is related to reduce incidence of various chronic conditions. However, it has been noted that quite a few number of people live a healthy lifestyle. The physical activity may provide health benefits to the individuals and the regular physical activity may contribute to improvement of the health outcomes irrespective of the fact whether the individual has lost weight (Jakicic & Otto, 2005). It has been found from the information centre that the rate of obesity in England is increasing every year (The information Center, 2011). It was in the year 2008, when almost a quarter of the adults in England were categorised as obese. The age group of such victims have been 16 or more. It was further observed that about thirty nine percent of the adults had a ‘raised waist circumference’ in the year 2008. The most surprising fact was that the percentage of ‘raised waist circumference’ was evident more in women in comparison to men. It was further observed that boys were more likely to participate in the suggested level of physical activities in the year 2008 when compared to girls. The study of percentages makes it quite apparent that the number of boys participating in 60 minutes or more of the physical activities on each of the seven days is more in comparison to the girls (32% for boys against only 24% of girls). Moreover, out of every five children, one aged within 5 to 15 reported to consume increased amounts of fruits and vegetables. The health outcome can also be figured out in this respect. In the UK, it was found that among adults aged 16 and above, the obese men and women were more likely to be the victim of the high blood pressure than those who are of normal weight (The Health and Social Care Information Centre, 2010). 2. The Individual Behaviour Change Approach and the Community Development Approach The basic question here is to answer the approaches used to positively influence the lifestyle. It can be said that the approaches for influencing the lifestyle can be directed towards the changing individual behaviour, the changing aspects of the community and the changing relation between the individual and the community. According to the recent history of the health promotion, it has been made evident that the individual and the aspects of the social environment too are modifiable. It has further revealed the fact that there is close linkage between the two levels of intervention (Lyons & Langille, 2000). It becomes utmost important to differentiate between the two concepts namely the health-related behaviour and the health directed behaviour. It can now be understood that the health directed behaviour is generally undertaken for certain reasons having health consequences. While the health related behaviour is normally undertaken for the sake of health. Often the basic function of a health promotion effort is to increase the health related behaviour, while at other times the efforts are directed towards the health directed behaviour. Till date, it has been noted that the strategies, in order to change or enhance the lifestyle, are directed towards the individual (Lyons & Langille, 2000). According to the Beattie’s (1991) model of health promotion approaches, there are four paradigms of health promotion. He offered a structural analysis of the health promotion approaches. Most of the health promotion works that involve advice and information are determined by the practitioners while certain dimensions relate to the focus of intervention ranging from focus on individual to focus upon the collective and the causes of ill health (Paul, 2011). Four strategies of the health promotion are generated from the Beattie’s typology. They are health persuasion, personal counselling, legislative action and community development. The health persuasion approach of Beattie’s typology is the interventions that are directed at the individuals and are led by the professionals. For example, a primary health care worker generally looks to encourage the obese men or women to involve themselves in the physical activities. On the other hand, the community development intervention is similar to that of personal counselling. It seeks to empower or enhance the skills of the local community or the group. The main objective of the health persuasion modes of the intervention of the Beattie’s model is to encourage and persuade the people to adopt healthier lifestyles. The basic activities of these modes of intervention embrace advice and information. The conservative political ideology is adopted in health persuasion modes of intervention. Moreover, the practitioner is in the role of the expert or prescriber. The main objective of the community development modes of intervention is to enfranchise the group along with the communities in order that they can recognise what common thing they have and the social factors that persuade their lives. The practitioner here plays the role of an advocate and the radical political ideology is generally followed. The activities comprise community development as well as action (Docstoc, 2010). 2a. Compare And Contrast the Two Health Promotion Approaches There are similarities as well as differences between the two modes of intervention of Beattie’s approach. The health persuasion or the individual behaviour techniques and the personal counselling for health are united in terms of the their individual focus of intervention as both of the intervention are concerned with the aspects of the personal behaviour and the lifestyle that affect the health and lead to health issues such as obesity. The community development for health, on the other hand, comes on the collective side of the focus of intervention dimensions where the health promotion is about the structural issues, policy development and community action and community empowerment issue respectively. It is to be noted that the health persuasion techniques derive its power base from the traditional, scientific, objective and medical research upon the relationship between several diseases (Piper, 2009). In case of individual authoritarian or health persuasion, the responsibility lies with the individual. It is conceived that they have the ability to make significant changes in their lifestyle or the environment and the success is gauged on the basis of the degree of compliance with the advice that they receive from the health professionals. It has been observed that this approach has been criticised for blaming the victim for non-compliances. On the other hand, the community development lies at the collective negotiated quadrant. The major aim is the redistribution of the power to the disadvantaged groups via empowerment by the usage of the action research, training and lobbying along with skills sharing. 2b. Method of Dealing with Health Related Behaviour Or Lifestyle Related Health Issue Chosen By The Approaches Both the approaches seem to be appropriate to deal with the health related issues such as obesity. Obesity can be a genetic cause as well. The family members share not only the genes but also the diet along with the lifestyle habits which might contribute to obesity. There are evidences which prove that the heredity can be a strong determining factor of obesity. There are psychological and environmental factors that determine the obesity. However, there is requirement of treatment option for the obesity. The individual’s overall weight and the motivation to lose extra weight are few of the factors that can be taken into account when curing the obesity (Clark, 2008). Proper nutrition, behavioural modification and regular physical activity can result to the effective weight management. A lifestyle that consists of improper diet and sedentary behaviour has been cited as the biggest preventable reason of death in most of the countries. It has been evident that the advice from the health care practitioners on matter of obesity can be useful for the obese people. This underscores the need for the increased physician’s involvement in the treatment of obesity. The individual who can combine proper nutrition along with the behavioural strategies and the regular exercises are more likely to maintain weight loss compared to the individual who simply restricts the calories (Pan American Health Organization, 2004). Combination approaches that integrate energy intake restriction, behaviour modification and increased physical activity can be the most effective programs in order to reduce the weight and improve the quality of life. In such condition, a team of health care professionals caters the physicians and the patients with the resources to manage the condition that has been proven difficult to treat. Multiple team members working in a team together have the greater capacity than a single member so that that the weight measurement strategies undertaken by the patient ultimately improve the health of the patient (Foreyt, 2003). Therefore, it can be said that the Beattie’s model is quite effective in resolving the problem of obesity and deals with the health related behaviour. 2ci. Policy Context Recognising the ill-effects of obesity, most of the economies have adopted various measures in terms of policies to reduce the impact of the disease and build up a healthy environment. Similarly, precautionary measures have also been granted by the UK economy. For instance, the government of England enforces a population-wide obesity prevention strategy in tackling the problem. Notably, the policies adopted by most of the developed regions have a pre-set target by which the risk of obesity is intended to be minimised as in Netherlands. In England the set target intends to minimise the risk of obesity by at least 70% among adults by 2020. On the contrary, the policies adopted by Wales and Scotland are not based on any targets. However, the policies adopted both in the developed and the developing regions of the UK are focused on the strategy to increase awareness. This is meant to be accomplished through the betterment of school environment and improved workplace. In this regard, the policy document published in 2008 illustrated a key theme to reward an employee based on his healthy living practices (Musingarimi, 2008). From the above discussion, it is identified that the policies adopted by the regulatory bodies in the various regions of the UK economy, concentrate largely on the issue of health promotion. For instance, rewarding employees for healthy living practices, improving the school environment and promoting physical activities largely contribute to health promotion which in turn focuses on generating awareness regarding obesity. 2cii. Policy Support According to the Beattie’s health promotion approach, the policies adopted in the UK tend to be largely collective focused on the overall community development. Therefore, the policies also tend to be highly negotiable putting a constraint in terms of its efficacy. Hence, the policies enforced should be much more individual concentric, promoting personal counselling programmes and health persuasions not only in the workplace but also in schools. 2cii. (a) Government Policy That Is Health Lives, Health People (DH 2010) and How It Supports Health Promotion United Kingdom is considered as one of the obese nations in Europe. The government has not been able to completely promote healthier lifestyle and teach about the way the people should live. Therefore, initiatives are taken by the government to organise things nationally along with a dedicated new public health service i.e. Public health England that helps to deal with the complex structures that exist today. The Government of England is focusing more on the local communities that has new resources, rights and power in order to improve their environment and tackle local problems such as obesity (HM Government, 2010). It supports the health promotion since it will help the general public to be aware of the adverse effects of the problem of obesity. It will further help the people to cure the disease and make the environment and the community a better place to live in. 2ciii. The Nature of Health Information The approaches suggested in the Beattie’s Model, i.e. Health Persuasion and Community Development as a means of intervention to the problem of obesity, is principally based on an assumption. For instance, the assumption suggests that health promotional activities highly depend on the social and the political structure of the economy. However, the health persuasion approach is based on the assumption that the responsibility to eradicate the risk of obesity lies within the control of individuals. Thereby, the suggestible action that is stated according to the approach is to promote health persuasion by organising media campaigns and other modes to generate awareness among the individuals. A major limitation witnessed here is that the approach focuses only on the adult population while it ignores the risk of childhood obesity to an extent (Thomson & Pickering, 2001). The other approach suggested by this model is the approach of community development. The assumption undertaken in this approach tends to focus on the needs of disabled people who are to an extent neglected in the society but possess a higher level of risk of getting affected by obesity due to physical inactivity. Hence, the approach suggests considering programmes such as training and lobbying, action researches and sharing of the skills among others (Denman, 2002). 2civ. The Nature of Health According to the researches, there are numerous issues causing ill health among the inhabitants of an economy such as poverty, disability and cultural perceptions. Understanding these factors can prove to be highly supportive from an individual perspective as it shall not only generate a level of knowledge regarding the consequences of obesity but shall also motivate the audiences to live healthy. It can also stimulate the affectivity of the health promotional activities quite strongly (Lyons & Langille, 2000). 2cv. Ethical and Cultural Considerations It can be learnt from the above discussion that the approach of health persuasion chiefly considers individual who are adults and possesses no disability in terms of psychology and/or physical attributes. On the contrary, the community development approach focuses on the disabled people. With due consideration to the ethical aspects, it can be stated that while executing the approaches, equal concern should be provided to both the disabled and fit (both mentally and physically) people in the community. It should also provide equal importance to the fact of childhood obesity as an ethical contribution (Burgdorf & Burgdorf. Jr., 1976). 3. Future Recommendation With Regards to Obesity It can be recommended that in order to get rid of the problems of obesity, the general public needs to be educated about its causes and consequences and also needs to be made aware of the prevention measures with the aim that the health of the people can be improved. The government needs to play a vital role in this regard. It would be recommendable for the people to change the way of living or the lifestyle in order to promote their health. They need to focus upon the health promotion training programme and regularly participate in various campaigns in order that they can be motivated to live a healthier life and reduce the risk. Part B Individual Reflection The health promotion module offered me the opportunity to learn and practice the practical elements and to understand the talent that is required for those who work in this particular field. It came to my notice that there can be several health issues such as obesity, related to the lifestyle behaviour. I was surprised to know that there are various ways through which the individuals can increase the control over their health and recognise that the health improvement is their key aim. Such technique is popularly known as health promotion. Lifestyle behaviour is a serious issue and leads to several health related problems such as obesity, smoking, drinking among others. I viewed that people tend to live a life which doesn’t have any adverse implication upon their health. However, they forget to recognise that such behaviour may adversely affect the health of the individuals. The study surprised me when I observed that the rate of obesity is growing in the UK. Around two-third of the population was considered to be overweight. More number of men was engaged in physical activity in comparison to that of women. Moreover, the most surprising factor was that in the UK, obesity has grown almost 400% in the last 25 years and is soon going to exceed smoking as the major reason of premature loss of life. The economic cost of the obesity can be estimated at ?3.3-3.7 billion per year. These facts made me realise how rapidly the rate of obesity is rising. Huge effort is being taken by the government of the UK to reduce the rate of obesity. Moreover, the health promotion is the key to deal with the lifestyle behaviour, ultimately leading to obesity. It came to my knowledge that the obesity is generally caused when people overeat in relation to the amount of food that is required by them. The most interesting point that I noticed was that as there is absence of practical cookery lessons, both the children and the young people are growing up without any skills to prepare healthy meals. As a reason, they heavily rely upon the convenient foods that are rich in energy density. Moreover, the promotions also tend to play a vital role in attracting the young and the children towards the energy-dense foods. I observed that there are various barriers to health promotion for the people who have the learning disabilities. From the study, I noticed that there are significant group of population who generally take up the health promotion initiatives in a much smaller number in comparison to the rest of the population. I felt that the reason for this may be varied, but it often centres on the characteristics of the services offered to them. If the barriers to the health promotion are addressed and removed then this will ultimately reduce the health inequalities in the service provisions. This report helped me to gain an understanding that there are three main elements of the health promotion namely the health education, prevention and health protection. The study took me to the journey of obesity and helped me to gauge the various approaches of the health promotion that can be used to deal with the health issues related to lifestyle behaviour. Beattie’s (1991) model seemed to be the best model that can help the health promoters to identify a strategy according to the social and political framework within which the health promoters are operating. Out of the four promotion strategies of Beattie’s, two promotion techniques have been identified as being useful to deal with the obesity related health issues. It came to my knowledge that among the four strategies, the individual authoritarian quadrant i.e. health persuasion and the collective negotiated quadrant-community development can be used to deal with the obesity. In case of the health persuasion strategy, the responsibility for the health lies with the individual and the individual is conceived of as having the ability to make changes in their lifestyles or the environment in which they operate. While in the case of community development, I came to know that the main aim is the redistribution of the power for the disadvantages via empowerment using the action research and sharing of skills. In order to eradicate the obesity problem, the individual himself needs to take certain steps such as regular exercising, dietary control and regular visit to the physician or the health instructor who will help to reduce the weight and lead a normal life within the society. It also came to my view that for those who are disabled people or most appropriately the neglected people; need to be provided with training in the community so that they can also be prevented from the risk of obesity. The most neglected part of any research study is the ethical consideration. However, in this research paper, I learned the ethical part needs to be taken into account when executing the approaches as one of the approaches deal with the physical disability while another puts emphasis upon the physically fit person living in the society. The physically disabled are generally neglected and as a result they don’t receive any kind of support from their surroundings. Inequality needs to be eradicated completely from the society and an environment of equality should be fostered in an attempt to help us to provide an environment that is safer to live. The equality will also help us to reduce the rates of obesity in the society. I personally feel that the research study should have also paid due attention towards the childhood obesity. However, according to my view, further research must be based upon child obesity and the research must support for the health promotion strategies of childhood obesity. In my concluding words, I wish to state that lifestyle intervention approaches can be effective to deal with the problem of obesity. However, the lifestyle of the individual should be evaluated in order to prevent the occurrences of such kind of diseases. References Burgdorf, M. P. & Burgdorf, Jr., R., 1976. A History of Unequal Treatment: The Qualifications of Handicapped Persons as a "Suspect Class" Under the Equal Protection Clause. The Minnesota Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities. [Online] Available at: http://www.mnddc.org/parallels2/pdf/70s/76/76-AHO-MPB.pdf [Accessed February 16, 2011]. Clark, T. J., 2008. Information. Obesity. [Online] Available at: http://www.tjclarkinc.com/d_genetic_obesity.htm [Accessed February 16, 2011]. Clemen-Stone, S. & Et. Al., 2002. Comprehensive Community Health Nursing: Family, Aggregate & Community Practice. Elsevier Health Sciences. Docstoc, 2010. Beattie’s (1991) Model of Health Promotion Approaches. Health Persuasion. 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