Childhood Obesity Issue in Australia - Coursework Example

Primary Healthcare Issues in Australia: Childhood Obesity Introduction Primary health care is directed at the prevention of illness and promotion of good health. In the Australian health care, primary health care has become a matter of prime importance. Childhood obesity is one of the challenges that the Australian primary health care has to face in the contemporary age. Childhood obesity exposes children to the risk of increased cardiovascular morbidity. Many heart related diseases may occur as a consequence of childhood obesity including high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure and high blood sugar. An increase of 1 per cent in the number of physically active individuals would result into a saving of about 122 lives which would otherwise have been lost because of colon cancer, coronary heart disease or type 2 diabetes (child-obesity.info, 2006). There is a vast body of literature to suggest that the increase in childhood obesity in Australia has been steady over several decades. The curve of childhood obese has become steeper and recently, childhood obesity in Australia has reached alarming levels. In this essay, past literature has been reviewed to analyze the trend of increase in childhood obesity over the past few decades, causes for the increase of childhood obesity have been identified, and measures have been suggested to help the Australian children escape obesity and live an active and health life. Analysis of the Issue Time-based Increase in Childhood Obesity in Australia Australian Society for the Study of Obesity (ASSO) compiles the history of statistics related to childhood obesity in Australia from a number of sources. According to the statistics recorded by rch.org.au (2007), percentage of Australian children that are obese now exceeds 25. This percentage was below 20 in the 1960’s. In the years between 1985 and 1995, childhood obesity in Australia saw a two-fold increase, whereas when looked at in an even broader spectrum, obesity among people of both sexes and all age groups tripled in Australia in the same duration. In the ten years between 1985 and 1995, obese boys aged between 7 years and 15 years increased in percentage from 1.4 to 4.7 whereas obese girls in the same decade increased in percentage from 1.2 to 5.5. In the year 1995, Australian boys aged between 2 years and 17 years that were obese were 21 per cent of the total and the percentage of girls of the same age was 23 per cent. Recent statistics collected from numerous cities of Australia suggest that childhood obesity in Australia is more accelerating than increasing. In the year 2000, primary school children of the NSW Central Coast were examined by Goodman et al. (2002) for obesity. It was found that 9.9 per cent of the boys aged between 7 years and 11 years were obese whereas 7.1 per cent girls of the same age group were obese. In the same survey, 26.4 per cent boys and 28.4 per cent girls were found to be both obese and overweight. This research was followed by another survey conducted by Vaska and Volkmer (2004) in which, the increase in percentage of the South Australian obese preschoolers between 1995 and 2002 was found. The researchers found that 4 year old obese preschooler boys increased in percentage from 3.2 to 4.1 from 1995 to 2002 respectively while the 4 year old obese preschooler girls increased from 3.5 per cent to 5.8 per cent in the same duration. If the present rate of childhood obesity in Australia is extrapolated for the next few decades, it is estimated that 50 per cent of all young Australians will have become overweight by 2025 (University of Utah cited in ASSO, n.d.). Causal Factors for Childhood Obesity in Australia Numerous factors have caused an increase in childhood obesity in Australia over the years that include but are not limited to poor eating habits, socio-economic status and ethnicity. This can be said on the basis of the fact that in the research carried out by Gliksman, Dwyer, and Wlodarczyk (1990), the number of obese children belonging to the Middle Eastern or European backgrounds has been found to be much more than the number of native obese children of Australia. Likewise, rate of increase of childhood obesity has been found to be higher in the children belonging to families with lower socio-economic status than the rate in children belonging to families with relatively higher socio-economic status. Obesity is primarily an outcome of energy imbalance. This energy imbalance is created when children consume foods with high caloric content that release too much energy in their body. Body needs physical workout in order to get rid of the excess energy stored in it. Thus, lack of exercise in the sedentary lifestyle that is the characteristic feature of a vast majority of the Australian children makes them obese. The intake of soft drinks by the children is a potential cause of their obesity. Experts have identified these beverages as the fundamental cause of childhood obesity. Children up to age 11 need between 1,200 and 1,500 calories a day. Only four of these beverages typically add up to between 400 and 600 calories, so many children are deriving up to a third or even half of their daily caloric intake from these products…By consuming a third or even a half of their calories from these drinks, kids are causing the hunger mechanism in their brains to become partly quenched. The result is that they’re less hungry, and with less hunger, they’re apt to eat fewer fruits, vegetables and other nutritious foods. (Keith cited in Auburn, 2002). Effects of Childhood Obesity in Australia Childhood obesity has exposed the Australian society to innumerable challenges. In the year between 1995 and 1996, Australia had to bear the cost of $680 million to $1239 million just because of obesity (child-obesity.info, 2006). Childhood obesity also promotes bullying because of the increased tendency of the obese children to be molested. Childhood obesity is the root-cause of many health problems in children most of which are related to the heart and blood. Besides the obvious unfavorable outcomes of childhood obesity, a potential consequence that is often overlooked is its impact on the child’s psychology. The child’s inability to participate in physical activities and his/her tendency to be made fun of by the class fellows may put the child into social exclusion. Measures to Reduce Childhood Obesity in Australia The primary healthcare services in Australia have recently taken a number of initiatives to fight childhood obesity. In order to overcome the challenge of childhood obesity in Australia, the NSW Childhood Obesity Summit has proposed a number of strategies to the NSW and Commonwealth Government pertaining to early childhood, family and community, school education, health, sports, local government, commercial food industry, media, and transport and planning (kids.nsw.gov.au, 2002). Most of these strategies require parents to play an active role in the reduction of their child’s weight by collaborating with the healthcare providers and also monitoring the child’s routine as instructed by the healthcare providers. Although childhood obesity is fundamentally an outcome of a child’s type of body, yet there is a lot which the parents can do to reduce their child’s susceptibility to obesity. The quantity of food, time of eating and the way of eating also plays a significant role in depicting the food’s effect on the body. Parents should preferably reduce the quantity but increase the frequency of meals in order to help boost the child’s metabolism. It is difficult to measure the obesity in children because the growth rate and pattern of maturity varies from one child to another. Measures that have conventionally been employed to measure the obesity include growth charts and body mass index (BMI), though the inferences drawn are subjective because of the individualistic developmental pattern of each child. Nevertheless, BMI has been acknowledged as a suitable means to measure obesity by many countries. According to this criterion, a child is obese of his/her BMI is more than the cut-off point for children of the same age group (health.nsw.gov.au, n.d.). Parents should make use of the BMI charts to realize the extent to which their child is obese. This helps in the monitoring process. Having realized the gravity of overweight and obesity as health problems, Australian Health Ministers reached a mutual consensus in November, 2002, according to which, they resolved to design a National Obesity Taskforce to gain an Australia-wide response to their efforts. The National Obesity Taskforce was directed at the creation of a national action plan for the reduction of obesity and overweight and the determination of roles for its effective implementation (Healthy Weight, 2008). In 2006, the Australian Department of Health and Ageing provided funds worth $166000 to the Australian Primary Health Care Institute (APHCRI) for conducting a sequential review of the factors to minimize obesity in children aged between 2 and 6 years (Edith Cowan University, 2011). This review was directed at the identification of factors that have conventionally hindered both the primary healthcare providers’ and the parental involvement in the programs for the reduction of childhood obesity in Australia. APHCRI released another $190980 in 2007 for the development of a portfolio supporting the interventions directed at reduction of childhood obesity in Australia. In order to improve the primary healthcare services in Australia further, they should be reorganized a bit. “[L]arger practice size is associated with better preventive care but also with poorer personal continuity of primary health care. The latter has a strong influence on the likelihood of patients receiving preventive care and its effectiveness in changing their behaviour” (Harris, 2008, p. 3). Conclusion Australia is included in the list of developed nations with alarming statistics for childhood obesity. Analysis of the increase in childhood obesity in Australia over the last two decades suggests that rate of overweight and obesity in boys has far exceeded that of the girls. Children belonging to various cultural backgrounds like the Middle Eastern and European and others that belong to the lower socio-economic status form the specific “at-risk” groups in the diverse Australian society. These at-risk groups are characterized by their sedentary lifestyles which stores excess energy in the body in the form of fat rather than giving it a way out of the body through exercise and workout. The primary healthcare services in Australia have conventionally engaged in a lot of practices and strategies to combat the epidemic of childhood obesity in Australia. Modification of the organization and structure of the general practice of primary healthcare in Australia can increase the efficiency of the healthcare providers manifolds. References: Auburn. (2002, April 19). High-Calorie Drinks Contributing to Juvenile Obesity, Expert Says. Alabama Cooperative Extension System. Retrieved from http://www.aces.edu/dept/extcomm/health/april19c02.html. ASSO. (n.d.). Obesity In Australian Children. Retrieved from http://www.asso.org.au/freestyler/gui/files//factsheet_children_prevalence.pdf. child-obesity.info. (2006). Child Obesity In Australia - Alarming Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.child-obesity.info/child-health/alarming-statistics-about-child-obesity-in-australia.html. Edith Cowan University. (2011). Engaging Parents and Primary Health Care Providers in the Prevention of Childhood Obesity. Retrieved from http://www.ecu.edu.au/community/initiatives/computing-health-and-science/prevention-of-childhood-obesity. Gliksman, M. D., Dwyer, T., and Wlodarczyk, J. (1990). Differences in modifiable cardiovascular disease risk factors in Australian schoolchildren: the results of a nationwide survey. Preventative Medicine. 19: 291-304. Goodman, S., Lewis, P. R., Dixon, A. J., and Travers, C. A. (2002). Childhood obesity: of growing urgency. Medical Journal of Australia. 174: 400-1. Harris, M. (2008). The role of primary health care in preventing the onset of chronic disease, with a particular focus on the lifestyle risk factors of obesity, tobacco and alcohol. Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity, UNSW. pp. 1-21. Retrieved from http://www.health.gov.au/internet/preventativehealth/publishing.nsf/Content/0FBE203C1C547A82CA257529000231BF/$File/commpaper-primary-hlth-care-harris.pdf. health.nsw.gov.au. (n.d.). NSW Health. Retrieved from www.health.nsw.gov.au. Healthy Weight. (2008). Australia’s Future: The National Action Agenda for Children and Young People and their Families. Retrieved from http://www.health.gov.au/internet/healthyactive/publishing.nsf/content/healthy_weight08.pdf/$File/healthy_weight08.pdf. kids.nsw.gov.au. (2002, Sep. 12). NSW Childhood Obesity Summit. Retrieved from http://kids.nsw.gov.au/uploads/documents/obesitycommunique.pdf. rch.org.au. (2007). Overweight and obesity in childhood. Policy Brief No 7. Retrieved from http://www.rch.org.au/emplibrary/ccch/PB7_Obesity.pdf. Vaska, V. L., and Volkmer, R. (2004). Incresing prevalence of obesity in South Australian 4-year-olds: 1995-2002. Journal of Pediatric Child Health. 40: 353-5. Read More