Analyzing Obesity In Australia And Public Health Interventions

Determinants of Obesity and related HR interventions

Discuss About The Accusations Evaluate Health Interventions.

Obesity in Australia, is a huge health concern for the larger sections of the society. According to the statistics gathered in Australia, about 65% of the population have been found ranging between overweight to being obese. In this regard, this report analyses the various factors that contribute weight gain or loss of weight. Excess energy imbalance is one of the main causes of extra weight gain that results from individual behavioural disproportion. Other various factors ranging from physiological and cultural to social as well as environmental contribute to disproportions in weight along with the core factors like improper diet and physical activities. Social control have been presented as an efficient tool  which have the potential to encourage social and cultural practices that can emphasize taking up healthy practices and thus prevent obesity. The government of the civilians and inspection of their undertaking of the control measures against obesity can be managed by various authorities. Among those, public healthcare interventions, which have a high potential in improving health of the individuals offer a major contribution. Social control through the means of panopticon or synopticon is useful for governing of health control measures to prevent obesity. Synopticon comprises of the marketing campaigns that takes place by means of the media. Such marketing campaigns also focus on drawing upon panoptic epidemiological information which have the capacity to successfully frame public opinion that obesity should be controlled. In regard of the various governing strategies and their impact, the Live Lighter campaign of Australia have been interpreted in this report.

About two third of the adults in Australia and every fourth children of the country are of excess weight or suffering from obesity. As per Carter (2014), excess weight is the cause of death of about 7000 individuals in Australia every year. Obesity is the causative agent of one in every five cases of heart attack, half of the fatalities cursed from diabetes, and most importantly accounts for other alarming issues like reproductive complications as well as sprain in the spinal cord.

Obesity among the Australians have an economic face also. On an average, Australians lose $38 billion AUD each year, due to 4 million work days they lose owing to physical problems arising out of obesity. Other factors being loss of money for incurring medical costs (about 1billion AUD) as well as economic losses that is caused due to premature death. The most feasible factors that are pushing the Australians towards obesity are high rate of intake of energy rich foods and parallely low rate of physical activity. Hence, a simplistic strategy to reduce weight gain is to be responsible about personal health and change personal practices to having healthier foods and be sporty and active. However general facts show that people are mostly aware of the healthy habits. However, they are always not in apposition to implement the practice ore are not willing to do so (Carter, Entwistle & Little, 2015).

HR fame work followed by the Healthway (Western Australia)

Hence lot of public interventions have taken place in order to make the people more aware of the values of obesity control. For instance, cooking classes halve been arranged in Sydney in order to help the people having diabetes in improving their knowledge about nutrients and their cooking skills also. However, social circumstances prevented them from pertaining to the practices. Often it was observed that poor economic practices prevented them bearing the higher cost of healthy and nutritive foods. In some other cases people felt ashamed to adopt a food culture different from the major part of the Australian society. Sometimes it has also been observed that depressions made people resort to consumption of more fast foods and alcoholic drinks resulting in obesity (Consensus, 2017). Hence it is all the more necessary to change the environment in which people sustain and progress and thereby align themselves to the social determinants of health which are work, live and play.

However, obesity is not only an issue for health departments of Australia. The local governments of Australia are in an ideal position for increasing the supply of healthier foods in the marketing and reducing their prices and in return reducing the supply of unhealthy and high fat and cholesterol containing foods and discouraging people from consuming such foods through various health campaigns (Crane et al. 2016).  The government of Australia have undertaken some potential point of purchase labelling along with marketing as well as portion control. Manu labelling have had high amount of impact on the civilians. They could be aware of the energy consumed through foods ordered at take away centres or other kind of food outlets. Estimated stats shows that after adaptation of the intervention strategies, in every 10% purchase of fast food, 100kilocalories energy consumption have reduced. However, the good habit could not continue. Shelf signage at the supermalls have been another potential intervention adopted by the authorities to help the cause (Farringdon, Hands & Chivers, 2018).

The campaign aimed at encouraging the Australian people to realise the importance of being physically fit, active and also eat well. The overall motive of all these necessary activities is to maintain a healthy weight. Major components of the campaign were mass media based advertisements including the likes of television activities as well as print advertisements (Lupton, 2013). Along with all these, a website have been formed as a part of the campaign that incorporates resources such as meal planning, risk calculator as well as health and diet control oriented recipes. The detailed focus of the campaign have been on increment of the link between becoming overweight and occurrence of chronic diseases, thereby promoting healthy eating habits as well. Furthermore, the campaign also encourages public debate regarding obesity and the importance of implementation of healthy eating habits and committing to physical activities (Lupton, 2015). The entire campaign have been designed upon six high priority areas. They wereStrategic Health Framework.

Eating healthier

(Source: Goryakin et al. 2017)

Within the time from 2012 to 2016, the Department of Health, Western Australia tried to shift from dietary policies and trends from energy dense foods that have poor nutrient value. On top of that is the need to improve food security. Before the launch of the Live Lighter Campaign, in 2012, the authority of Western Australia planned a partnership with the University of Edith Cowan with the aim of delivering an online suite for food and nutrition curriculum related support materials for Youngers. In 2013, the Food access and Cost related survey estimated the cost of nutritious food baskets available in supermarkets (Harray et al. 2017). In the middle of 2015, another survey was conducted which promptly showed that prices of fresh fruits and vegetables have increased. Various policies were also formulated by the Healthway. The safe Food and Drink policy was started in schools to provide healthy foods in school canteens and control foods which are high in calorie and energy.

Time to timer various interventions like Healthy Schools campaign, Fuel Your Fututre campaign and so on have been planned. The Live Lighter campaign have been developed in Western Australia with an aim to encourage adults in Australia which leads to healthier life styles in order to make changes in the eating and drinking habits and most importantly be more proactive. Undoubtedly it is important for families and individuals to make the right choices regarding their health (Herbert et al. 2017). This would in turn require less promotions of the junk foods, better labelling of foods and incorporation of policies for encouraging men to be more active. In June of 2012, the Live Lighter campaign started. The prime aim was to show the Australians, the ill effects of obesity inside their bodies and thus stressing on the importance of healthier lifestyle. In 2014, the Campaign won popularity in Victoria and Northern territory including the capital territory of Australia.

The data on the rising risk of mental illnesses in Australia shows that mental health would prove to be an alarming issue in the 21^st century. A large number of the Australian people would suffer from dementia. The list of social determinants of WHO also provides that stress factors causing Dementia would be an alarming issue for the World. In people aged from 16 to 65. This might prove to be the reason behind various disorders like mood swings, anxiety and so on. This leads people to crave for more fast food (Knox et al. 2017). The Live Lighter campaign addresses this problem and includes messages that might make people aware of the necessity to change their regular food habits. Familied person must remember that such poor habits might result in illness that would incur medical costs and future risks. Besides children growing up in these circumstances would not be able to learn healthy food habits. The factor of social exclusion is also brought into the limelight in the social determinants of the WHO, 2008. The same cause is being addressed in the Live Lighter with the example of “Grabbable gut”. People with untoned body posture would lose social recognition. The exponents of the campaign supposes that the illustrative representation of the internal organs of the body containing toxic fat would give rise to fear and disgust in the minds of the Australians. Another issue highlighted in the Social determinants of WHO is addiction (Lupton, 2013). Major percentage of the Australian people are addicted to poor food habits. They prefer crispy fried snacks and fast foods. In order to make the people aware of the disadvantages of these habits, the Live Lighter campaign have included a series of television commercials. These would portray several social circumstances and try to establish the importance of pertaining to good food habits. One of the advertisements show a middle aged man advancing towards the refrigerator to take out a slice of pizza. Midway he suddenly notice his “grabbable gut” and immediately looks at his children playing in the lounge. He decides to leave his idea. He realises that if he falls ill owing to these odd food habits, his children would have to suffer the consequences.

Targeted Interventions

The epidemiological developments of the 21^st century shows that overweight would be a common trait of the people with about 57% of the overweight being obese (Martin, 2015). In such a state, people are more prone to being attacked by various diseases of which diabetes is the most threatening. Kickbusch also confirms that the people born in the 21^st century would have lower life expectancy rate in comparison to the previous generation members. The Live Lighter campaign have addressed this issue and created illustrative television commercials for encouraging social awareness.

The images of fat encompassed organs and their terrible consequence that have been portrayed in the print advertisements of the Live Lighter campaign tends to evoke fear in the people’s mind regarding their health. Such threatening messages through imageries purposed to evoker fear appeals have also been part of various initiatives destined to change attitude of the society for better health outcomes including the likes of tetanus vaccination, anti-smoking campaigns, and campaigns to promote use of condoms and lastly roundworm medication (Goryakin et al. 2017). The basic strategy of a fear appeal is using dreadful representations to make the people change certain habits out of fear. The activity can raise anxiety on deliberation. However, an essential part of the fear appeals is highlighting of the measures that can be undertaken to avoid those undesirable consequences which people dreads.

Besides, Kickbusch also addresses that in the 21^st century the Australian societies are becoming restructured and they are witnessing more amount of health inequalities. However some scholars have put up argumentations against the fact that the impact of the obesity prevention campaigns rest not only on injecting fear in the minds of people regarding the harmful consequences of odd food habits and unhealthy lifestyles and particularly the dangerous outcomes associated with obesity (Pausé, 2017). Economics, the campaign should parallely advice people about the advantages of physical activity and health food habits which the campaign wants to promote.

However, it has been observed that maximum number of advertisements of the Live Lighter campaign focused on toxic fat and puts excess stress on evoking fear and then demonstrating actions which are aimed at minimising the threat, for evidence taking the steps rather than the loft to burn calories, or driving away from the fast food drives via the outlets rather than driving in there (Herbert et al. 2017).

In this section, the various practices and approaches if the Live Lighter campaign to achieve their aim have been discussed. Disgust imagery that portrays body products like as urine and images of body organs have been utilised in some other campaigns that promotes behavioural changes (McLean, 2015). Some of the scholars are of opinion that a combination of disgust along with fear aggravates the chances of message persuasion more than those appeals which only evoke fear. The images of visceral fat have been portrayed in pictorial representation of wet and veiny organs, and the television advertisement campaigns show the same encompassed by adipose tissues which are moving as well as pulsating. Other than that, various kinds of sounds have also been included, the ones that include squelching sounds or the sound of heartbeats (Carter, 2014). The primary purpose of portrayal of the image of visceral fat is to evoke disgust in the minds of obese people along with repulsion and horror. Besides fat bodies of men and women have been subjected to stigmatisation in many instances. The images aim to make fat an issue for social abjection.  This furthermore indicates internal pollution as well as bears the symbolical implication of fear as well as danger (Vallis & Inayatullah, 2016).

Thus, this disgust, abjection and stigmatisation that have been objectified in the campaign are destined to arouse the audiences to resort to selected body expectations for their own selves and also expecting the same of the others. This campaign also links certain wider media campaigns that despises the fatness of body and portrays fat people as ostracised as well as denigrated (O’Hara et al. 2016).

Other than this repulsive ad posting, there is another advertisement that shows a man who is holding his own “grabbable gut” and is having no face. These images generally stigmatise the fatty people with such outer physical disposition and implies their loss of identity in the society due to their fat bodies (Farringdon, Hands & Chivers, 2018). This initiative can be viewed as a reinforcement of the weight based stigma that is prevalent in the Australian society. Such attempts to dehumanize people is another way to inject social fear of denial of identity as a punishment of neglecting health and resort to unhealthy arrangements. However, there might be other societal implication of such imageries. The face blurring might also be an attempt to save the identity of the man demonstrated in the ad campaign. One other implication of the imagery could be to imply that fattiness do not have a face, or that the advertisement is equally applicable to both men and women who parallely suffers from the same issue of obesity. The disease that happen form obesity are similar in both men and women although (Pulker, Scott & Pollard, 2018).

The campaign is however initiating people to lose their loose body fat. The main projection is that belly fat is not only toxic but also socially unacceptable. However the rendition of the representations and the imageries raises questions also. The psychological impact that it brings about is questionable in this regard. Health interventions for the public is aimed at improving the health of the individuals, however it raises the question that is it acceptable to evoke sense3 of shame or disgust or fear in order to make people change their habits. On the contrary, this can be an addressing of the fact that visual implication have the power to influence people in a more positive way in terms of the degree of the impact that it have on the people’s minds (Pulker, Scott & Pollard, 2018).

Risk and personal responsibility are heavily portrayed through the implications of the visual messages in the Live Lighter campaign. The aim is to make people enact behavioural changes in terms of aggravating their physical activity and making smart choices to reduce the level of their risk. The risk here are the dangers that might follow poor health policies which is obesity and the associated anatomical disorders. The conceptions like the need to raise awareness about personal responsibility to reduce obesity and becoming knowledgeable about the risks of the same have risen from the health promotion activities in Australia that have aimed at promoting the facts that the risks are relative and hence can be easily avoided by means of caution and basic hygiene (Khodabandeh et al. 2017). However, this campaign have given

undisputable supremacy to personal responsibility to prevent the risk of obesity. Some changes in the individual behaviour is enough in comparison to interventions that have to address wider social issues. Personal responsibility is also linked with personal blame. The logic that links the two is that if the Australians constantly ignores the potential health risks like as toxic fat and unhealthy behaviours, then it is obvious that they are putting themselves in a position of being vulnerable to sickness and even disability and death. It does not end here. The implication is wider. Their capability to perform as a contributing societal member also curbs and they also incur cost upon their family, owing to their treatments.

The problem of obesity is much more complicated than simply enacting personal responsibility. It has to be considered in terms of real life context of the people. The relevance of the prevention messages in our day to day context is also required to be discussed. An instance can be provided. Risk are generally perceived by people as negative and associated with danger. However, risk have a positive aspect also. Voluntary risk reactions can also be undertaken in order to provide financial gain by staying healthy and being able to enjoy a more exciting life. Staying fit actually brings in a sense of self actualisation (Pausé, 2017). This can also be a part of sensible nurturing of kids also, whereby they can be taught healthy activities by virtue of which they can stay fit throughout their life. Again, this can only happen if the elders only set an example before them (Sumego, 2014). The Live Lighter campaign openly despise the practice of going to the supermarkets and buying crispy fried snacks, by tagging these activities as harmful for the body and risky for future health. However, there are still some people who in spite of realising the value of the statutory warnings still would not be able to control, the cravings of their taste buds. However, the campaign lays out another aspect of such control measures. Men should understand that they can save the money that they would have wasted in buying the fast foods which are generally costly. Thereby they can utilise the same money in some other important context.

Another factor is that the campaign addresses the contemporary modern society where men are constantly besieged by various temptations and parallely they are also condemned for their overindulgence. This is such a society where people tend to satisfy their desires, frustrations and temptations through fast foods and various snacks (Consensus, 2017). The geographical as well as the economic factors are also needed to be considered while addressing the real contexts. One television commercial highlights a man who makes the right choice by preventing his desire of entering into a fast-food outlet and driving away from there. However, for people who live in a food desert and do not have ready access to healthy and affordable foods (preferably areas inhabited by people of low socioeconomic status) fetching fast food is supposed to be the best alternative since there are no healtho9er alternative available at hand. Similarly the ad that portrays the mother out to purchase a packet of chips for the child could be stark reality for families that live in financial distress (Pausé, 2017).

However this campaign can comprehensively display the interaction of panopticon as well as synopticon. Epidemiological data about panopticon is implied into campaign messages that talk of social control by means of behavioural changes. Self-surveillance is encouraged in the campaign. Illustrative use of spectacle is also being made in this campaign. The first is the spectacle that portrays internal organs in order to foster disgust with images of fatty gut. Another spectacle is that of persons checking themselves at the last moment before committing the mistakes that might lead theme towards obesity. Other important spectacles have also been used.

The Live Lighter campaign ideas have been taken out of the societal implications only. It is an amalgamation of some common social believes, not all of which are moralistic. The idea of cornering a person for his odd figure is not a good implication (Martin, 2015). However, if the portrayal and spread of this implication can make the people aware of the ill effects of obesity, be it then for the better.

Conclusion

The case study of the campaign have been analysed and the analysis leads to the conclusion that reflection and interpersonal discussion of the various aspects and implications of the awareness campaign is really essential. The policy makers of the campaign have planned the campaign so that it addresses and meets the criteria of the various interventions taken place in the past. However, campaigns like Live Lighter are time limited and focuses on bringing about behavioural changes. In this regard, the recommendations of the WHO regarding obesity control have also been considered. After about 3 to 4 months of the completion of the campaign, a general survey have to be conducted to realise the outcome of the campaign and realise how it has been able to influence people. More such campaigns can act as social drivers of change, as evident from the nature of the Live Lighter campaign.

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