Targeting Obesity Among School Children In South Hall: A Health Promotion Initiative

Background of the Research

Obesity is a sort of medical condition which accumulates access amount of body fat which is further throwing negative impact on the health condition of adults or school going children. Today the health disorder to obesity is considered as one of the leading cause of death all throughout the world and research suggest that the rate of individuals getting obese is increasing day by day especially among the school children falling under the age group of 5-11 years. In the year 2013, the American Medical Association (AMA) was found to make classification of obesity as a health disorder (Harris et al 2009). The health problems of obesity could be strictly prevented by making a combination of social changes as well as personal choice made by the individuals themselves. Making valuable changes in diet and undergoing proper physical exercises are considered as the most applicable treatment of the obesity. Improving diet quality to restrict the chances of obesity simply means to make reduction in the amount of energy food intake along with foods that has high amount of sugar and fatty ingredient. Food with high fibre content is determined as the most applicable diet for adults and as well as children having obese problems. Obesity in the previous era was considered as the symbol of wealth and fertility.

In the modern world, the health condition of obesity has been completely stigmatised especially in the western countries. A research report in health in 2014, illustrated that among 600 million adults present in the western countries and only about 13% individuals are found to have underwent obese problems whereas in comparison to this the from among 42 million population of children in the western countries and about one- sixth of the population who are school going falling under the age group of 5-11 years are experiencing the health disorder to being obese (James et al 2007). From the viewpoint of different health care authorities it is found that obesity among school children is the most serious public health problem notified in the 21^st century. Proper medication along with suitable and healthy diet is considered as most applicable for decreasing the amount of fat and thus reducing chances of obesity. Though medication for obesity treatment has been approved but FDA still now has not approved the use of medicines to cure obese problems among the children rather their obesity issues is suggested to be treated by bringing changes in both the psychological and cognitive behaviour of the school children at South Hall.

The aim behind carrying out a research on the topic “Targeting obesity among school children in South hall aged between 5-11 years” is to determine how much among the children population in the western country is suffering from obesity health disorders and accordingly developing strategies that would help in restricting the increase health problems for obesity especially among school going children aged between 5-11 years (Kipping et al 2008).

Some of the research objectives designed in perspective of the selected topic are as follows:

• To identify how much educated are the catering staffs of South Hall school and provide them “On site” training  on healthy meal preparation so that in future they deliver dietary foods to their school children aged between 5-11 years.
• To evaluate how the management board of South Hall School are motivating their school children of age between 5-11 years to stay indulge into fitness activities which would restrict the chances of obesity.
• To assess how much the fitness classes are successful in supplying proper health facilities that would reduce the chances of falling into obesity disorder (Labree et al 2011).
• Make further recommendations for South Hall School to implement a new “Packed lunch” policy for delivering dietary foods to the children falling under the age group of 5-11 years who has the maximum chances of experiencing obesity.

Aim of the Research

Research suggests that the country of UK is ranked first in perspective of childhood obesity. Among every 5 school going children about 3 of them are estimated as obese. This constant increase in the rate of obesity bring up chances for the children to experience some diseases like type 2 diabetes, asthma as well as high blood pressure which would degrade the health condition of the children at a very early age. Increased obesity related health disorders are now found to put more emphasis on the supply of improved health care services especially designed for treatment of the school going children’s so that they do not experience the ultimate consequences of obesity at a very early age (Leung et al 2011).  A specific health promotion initiative that is taken into consideration by the South Hall School especially to restrict obesity among children aged between 5-11 years is the “Packed Lunch” Policy. This health promotion initiative seemed quite important because for most hours school going children do stay out of their homes and so they consume different types of food which throw negative impact on their health like they consume different snacks or other fast food items which contains very high amount of fats as well as other harmful ingredients. Continuous consumption of such kind of foods would bring up the chances of developing obesity problems among the school going children aged between 5-11 years. With this health promotion initiative at the South Hall College food standard that is supplied to children of the particular age group would be maintained properly, a ban on delivery of fast food from the school canteen would be abolished and most importantly all sugary soft drinks would be removed from sale by the school catering. A nutrient based standard of food given in packed lunch would be maintained after organising such a health promotion initiative (Metcalf et al 2010).

From this research evidence, a conclusion could be drawn that carrying out such a health promotion initiative (stated above) did limit the obesity risk among school going children of South Hall. The dropdown in number of school children who initially developed symptoms of did not experience the harmful impact of the disorder for undergoing proper dietary lunch in 2005-2006. Most importantly no negative impact did fall on the psychological and cognitive conduct of the school going children aged between 5-11 years (Mushtaq et al 2011).

In order to plan for health promotion within a community some steps are necessary to follow:

STEP 1- Make proper management of the health promotion planning process. This simply means to make proper planning for engaging different stakeholders, also including different clients and staffs. It is important to establish a perfect timeline to work with the plan of health promotion within the community and accordingly makes plans for properly allocating all financial, as well as human resources.

STEP2- this step is necessary for making plans to organise health promotion because situational assessment is very much important. This helps in identifying the situation where the health promotion campaign would be held and understands what data should be utilised. This step is important to accumulate different sources of data and the data collection methods (O’neill et al 2007).  

Research Objectives

STEP3-by making use of the situational assessment outcomes, the main goals and objectives of organising heath promotion within the community would be determined along with interest level of the population and the outcomes achieved through the health promotion planning made.

STEP4- Make use of the outcomes of situational assessment and for selection of one of the strategies among health communication, health education and many other which would provide practicable resources contributing success to the goals behind health promotion planning (Shah et al 2008).

The health belief model was developed during the 1950’s by social psychologists of the US public health services and it is one of the most widely utilised theories followed for making health promotion. The health belief model act as a guide for making health promotion and also for carrying out different disease prevention program for example, to restrict the obesity risk among school going children aged between 5-11 years. This model could further be utilised to design different short and long term health promotion programs depending on the capability to gauge the level of perceived susceptibility as well as perceived severity among the target population (Tremblay et al 2011).  The health belief model has been utilised to deliver the health promotion project of “Tackling obesity among school going children of South Hall aged between 5-11 years” because this models helps in making decisions that would encourage health behaviours by firstly accumulating information by performing health needs assessment that would restrict obesity, convey information about high consequences of obesity on health thus motivating the children to adopt healthy eating, provide information to other people of the community regarding actions to be taken o minimise the risk of obesity once determined and provide support to children’s for making behavioural changes to restrict obesity.

Some valuable methods were followed to complete the project and so 4 helping members, 3 fitness trainers as well as trained and experienced catering staffs were called on for assisting on the project. The chef would be handled the responsibility of investigating the process following which meals for the school children at South Hall would be made and packaged, and also the chef would look into the nutritional level of all the ingredients that are being used in preparing the meals (Harris et al 2009).  The fitness trainer would be suggested to motivate children falling between the age group of 5-11 years to indulge into the fitness classes increasing their knowledge on its positive impact over their health. The management department of south Hall school is suggested to organise sports events for keeping the students motivated. Most importantly a participatory letter should be supplied to the guardian of every student and for some classified reason.

This project on “Tackling obesity of school children”, would be further evaluated from the report that demonstrates a valuable decrease in the number of children suffering from obesity previously and now. Some other evidence that would help in making further evaluation of the project is that fitness record of the school children aged between 5-11 years and returned consent of the parent permitting their children to involve into activities that would help in reducing obesity risk (James et al 2007).  After the completion of the project it was found that literacy rate of the catering staffs have increased along with increased interest of the school children of that particular age to involve in different fitness activities. Most importantly it was found that the parents became more concerned about the type of food their children’s are consuming and only allowing them to make dietary intake all throughout the day to reduce the health risk of being obese.

Description of the Assessment

Conclusion 

Day by day the obesity problems among school children are found to be on an increasing note. This is mainly happening because for most of the hours school children at South Hall are consuming foods that have high calories and fatty ingredient. The healthy BMI do vary in age and sex of the children which makes some suffer very less from obesity problems and some to suffer very much. With discussion made on different context about how obesity could be reduced among the children it is found that obesity in children becomes more effective when the BMI is over 95^th percentile (Kipping et al 2008). Therefore, to reduce obesity among school children at South Hall it is important to make sure that the schools catering staffs are well trained and they develop new food supply policy in school to provide dietary foods to the children of the age group 5-11 years of age. Health research have clearly demonstrated that childhood obesity especially in the western countries have reached an epidemic proportion only in the 21^st century. Different campaigns are organised to let people know and make them aware about good food which would improve health condition and reduce of obesity risk. Decrease in physical activity is the main reason for increasing childhood obesity.  

References

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