Health Promotion Programs To Tackle Obesity: Ottawa Charter Strategies

The Harmful Outcomes of Obesity

Discuss about the Health Promotion Planning for Sociology of Health & Illness.

Health promotion can be explained as the procedure that enables people in increasing their control over their health and thereby participate in improvement of their health. It can be seen to move beyond the focus of the individual behaviors towards a wide range of different types of social as well as environmental interventions (Dyment et al. 2017). The main purpose of the health promotion programs is to positively influence the health behaviors of the different people and other communities and helps in developing the living and working conditions of the people thereby influencing their health. Recently, health promotion programs are considered to be one of the effective ways for helping the nation. It helps to fight with the chronic disorder of the obesity and therefore most of the concerned authorities are proposing health promotion plans for the effective handling of the disorder and reducing the negative effects that the disorder is having on the nation (Thompson, Watson and Tilford 2018). This assignment will first highlight the harmful outcomes that the disorder of obesity is having on the patient. Following that, it will successfully show how choosing one of the aspect of the Ottawa charter can successfully help in initiating health promotion and helping people overcome the negative effects of the disorder. 

Obesity is one of the serious as well as chronic disorders that has huge number of negative impacts on the different systems of the body. Individuals who are seen to be overweight or obese are exposed to the greater risk of the development of the severe conditions like different types of heart diseases (Baum and fisher 2014). They are also responsible for development of type 2 diabetes as well as bone and joint diseases (Fry and Zask 2016). Many other health effects may result from obesity that are increases in blood pressure, increased chances of sleep apnea. Different types of metabolic syndrome and other types of cancer. Different types of psychosocial effects are also seen to occur that mainly comprise of depression from body image, bullying, anxiety, social exclusion and many others that affect the quality of life (Waters et al. 2018). Statistical reports provided by the Australian Institute of Health and welfare have stated that two adults in every three adults were overweight or obese in the year from 2014 to 2015. They had stated that 5% of the burden of the diseases is mainly contributed to the obesity and overweight situations in the year 2011. Again 28% of the adults in the nation was seen to be obese in the year 2014 to 2015 and this contributed to an increase from 19% in the year 1995 (Fry and Zask 2016). Huffingtonpost has stated that in the year 2014-2015 there was  staggering 63.4 percent of the Australian adults who were obese or overweight which was over half of the population of the nation. Therefore, in order to change the scenario, it is extremely important to learn about the causes of the disorder and set health promotion initiatives accordingly (Baum and fisher 2014). Besides the genetic and metabolic causes, a large number of lifestyle factors mainly dedicate in development of obesity. Overeating in a course of sedentary lifestyles, having diet high in percentage of calories but now working out to burn the calories result in accumulation of calories contributing to weight gain (Naidoo and Wills 2016). Moreover sedentary lifestyles, not exercises or involving in physical activities increases the chance. Eating on large number of calorigenic low price fast foods are also one contributing factor. Therefore, it is extremely important to design a health promotion program that would help people to learn about the causes of obesity and take services that can prevent or cure them from being affected by the disorder (Waters et al. 2018).

The Importance of Health Promotion Programs

Ottawa Charter is an international agreement that was held in the month of November in the year 1986 in Canada and was arranged by the World health organization. Several actions were proposed by the charter for achieving better health for all individuals within 2000 and beyond (Kalantari et al. 2017). In order to achieve such aim, it is important for all the governmental sections as well as non governments local authorities, media, industry and other to work in a coordinated fashion so that effective health promotion can be ensured effectively. This charter is mainly seen to comprise of five important actions that are widely used by the sectors of health promotion for effectively recognizing and thereby utilizing them for controlling the negative outcomes of disorder or improper behavioral or lifestyle habits (Naidoo and Wills 2016). The health promotion sectors mainly utilize this five action areas for promoting better health that is actually a procedure of preventing ill health and thereby helping in advancing the health of the entire population through effective interventions. These are “Developing Personal Skills, Strengthening Community Action, Building Healthy Public Policy, Creating Supportive Environment and lastly, Reorienting Health Services” (Turunen et al. 2017). 

This is one of the most important priority action that allows the individuals as well as the communities where they reside to work together so that the concerned authorities can ensure that proper priorities and strategies are implemented for achieving better health outcome (Jancey  et al., 2016). It also helps in enhancing the support as well s the encouragement among the different communities for effective participation. It is mainly done to ensure that all the services are accessible to every members of the community (Kalantari et al. 2017). It should be also taken care that all the information should be available and that all the services are accessible to all the individuals. Researchers are of the opinion that this action area is mainly responsible for making the decisions and thereby planning different strategies regarding what is good for one’s health and thereby implementing them successfully to achieve this. Here the health promoters would be working with the communities by setting priorities, making decisions, planning different strategies and thereby taking actions (Gerritsen et al. 2016). This step would require access to important information, learning opportunities and even financial support. 

Steps That Need To Be Taken Within This Action Area: Examples Of The Initiatives To Be Taken To Reduce Obesity

• One of the most important initiatives of under this priority area would be to achieve cooperation in the school community as well as in the canteen in providing the students with the nutritious choices of meals. The school community should come together and take the steps of including detailed education about obesity and its impacts on health in the school curriculum so that children can be taught about correct lifestyles that they need to adopt. Researchers are of the opinion that physical recreation should also be placed as an important requirement upon the school community (Turunen et al. 2017). This is very important for educating the significance of being physically active for prevention of the obesity (Jancey et al., 2016).
• Local Healthwatch, public health teams as well as the community involvement should plan to engage the local people so that they can effectively identify their priorities in relation to that of the weight issues. This can be stated with the help of an example. They might consider issues like that of the crimes, the presence of different hot food takeaways, alcohol outlets, pavement parking, lack of well maintained green space,, lack of sense of community and other should be set as priorities (Scriven 2017). Community involvement as well s public health teams should be working with the local people as well as groups and organizations to decide what actions they need to take on obesity concerns (Gerritsen et al. 2016). The local broadcasting sectors should ban the use of advertisements that enhance the habits of having oily and calorigenic food like chips, cold drinks and takeaways foods like burgers and other snacks. Another initiative would be incorporating the important organizations, public health bodies, council leaders, director of public health and local authority community involvement teams to work together to reduce the price of nutritious and organic food products so that the these types of food can become affordable by the low socio-economic class of the community. This would help to control inequality among distribution of nutritious food and all the members of the community would get the scope to enjoy healthy living (Kalantari et al. 2017).
• Concerned heads of the community should take into account the cultural preferences and inhibitions of the community residents and accordingly so physical activity sessions. Here members can participate according to their cultural considerations and hence they get would get the scope of weight management at the same time maintaining their cultural traditions (Langford et al., 2015).
• However, all these sessions, services, reduction of price of nutrient rich food, banning of improper ads – all would be futile unless the community residents first develop the conception about the necessity to maintain health and to prevent obesity (Gerritsen et al. 2016). Therefore, it is very important for the communities to take the responsibility of first spreading the awareness about obesity so that the individuals develop health literacy. They should first learn to understand the importance of maintaining the healthy lifestyles and the various negative aspects that might affect them s they suffer from obesity (Scriven 2017). For this reason, the community heads should try to arrange for health education sessions where community residents would be requested to participate for gaining knowledge and skills about health literacy. Moreover, community heads can also circulate pamphlets; prepare advertisement boards across communities and many others to make the residents careful about their health (Langford et al., 2015). 

Understanding the Ottawa Charter

Conclusion:

From the above discussion, it becomes clear that obesity is one of the growing concerns for the nation as with the passing of years, more and more individuals are falling prey to the disorders. This is affecting their life to an extent where they are suffering from different physical disorders like heart diseases, blood pressure issues, cancer and others and many emotional and psychological impacts as well. Therefore, it is important for healthcare promoters to choose one of the effective action areas following which initiatives would be set. By following the “strengthening the community action” priority area, community leaders, public health teams, different organizations and services and others should come together and develop steps by which the community can be empowered and changes in lifestyle management can be ensured. 

References:

Baum, F. and Fisher, M., 2014. Why behavioural health promotion endures despite its failure to reduce health inequities. Sociology of health & illness, 36(2), pp.213-225.

Dyment, J., Emery, S., Doherty, T. and Eckhardt, M., 2017. Move Well Eat Well: Case study of a successful settings-based approach to health promotion. Health and Wellbeing in Childhood, p.283.

Fry, D. and Zask, A., 2016. Applying the Ottawa Charter to inform health promotion programme design. Health promotion international, 32(5), pp.901-912.

Gerritsen, S., 2016. Nutrition education for early childhood managers, teachers and nursery cooks: a prerequisite for effective obesity prevention.

Jancey, J., Barnett, L., Smith, J., Binns, C. and Howat, P., 2016. We need a comprehensive approach to health promotion. Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 27(1), pp.1-3.

Kalantari, N., Mohammadi, N.K., Rafieifar, S., Eini-Zinab, H., Aminifard, A., Malmir, H., Ashoori, N., Abdi, S., Gholamalizadeh, M. and Doaei, S., 2017. Indicator for success of obesity reduction programs in adolescents: Body composition or body mass index? Evaluating a school-based health promotion project after 12 weeks of intervention. International journal of preventive medicine, 8.

Langford, R., Bonell, C., Jones, H. and Campbell, R., 2015. Obesity prevention and the Health promoting Schools framework: essential components and barriers to success. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 12(1), p.15.

Naidoo, J. and Wills, J., 2016. Foundations for Health Promotion-E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Scriven, A., 2017. Promoting Health: A Practical Guide-E-Book: Ewles & Simnett. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Thompson, S. R., Watson, M. C., & Tilford, S. (2018). The Ottawa Charter 30 years on: still an important standard for health promotion. International Journal of Health Promotion and Education, 56(2), 73-84.

Turunen, H., Sormunen, M., Jourdan, D., Von Seelen, J. and Buijs, G., 2017. Health Promoting Schools—a complex approach and a major means to health improvement. Health promotion international, 32(2), pp.177-184.

Waters, E., Gibbs, L., Tadic, M., Ukoumunne, O.C., Magarey, A., Okely, A.D., Silva, A., Armit, C., Green, J., O’Connor, T. and Johnson, B., 2018. Cluster randomised trial of a school-community child health promotion and obesity prevention intervention: findings from the evaluation of fun ‘n healthy in Moreland!. BMC public health, 18(1), p.92.