Addressing the Issue of Obesity in the US

Developing an Advocacy Campaign That Addresses Obesity
Obesity is a serious public health issue and is even considered an epidemic by many health care professionals that affects all populations—old, young, men, women and children, regardless of demographic or location (Mitchell, Catenacci, Wyatt & Hill, 2011). To address this issue, several public advocacy campaigns have been developed. Healthy People 2020, for instance, under the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, is currently advocating to raise awareness about obesity and how to reduce the rising rates of it in the U.S. This paper will examine two scholarly articles about advocacy campaigns centered on fighting obesity, what they say, and what takeaways can be identified to help develop an effective advocacy campaign in the future.
The first article by Giang, Karpyn, Laurison, Hillier and Perry (2008) examines the effectiveness of the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative, which was designed to “bring awareness and policy change to the issue” of a lack of supermarket fresh foods in underserved areas (p. 272). In other words, it focused on addressing the grocery gap to help poorer communities obtain the kind of healthy, fresh food conducive to a diet that combats obesity. A key component of the advocacy campaign was “the creation of an evidence-based report that served as a strong, credible foundation for the campaign”—i.e., the situation/environment was researched, analyzed and tested to create a program that used evidence to support its directive. Evidence instead of ideology was the critical nexus of the campaign because it provided the advocacy leaders with an accurate picture of the real problems that needed to be addressed (specifically how to fight obesity in poor regions) and how to solve them (provide financing to help bring access to healthy foods to these regions). The evidence-based directive allowed the campaign to be a success, as it rightly identified the problem and the put into place an effective solution.
The second article by Doroghazi (2015) examines advocacy campaigns focused on fighting obesity in general and provided a critical analysis of one detrimental factor common to those that fail—namely the fact that they focus too much on blame and pseudo-causes of obesity instead of on the actual science of obesity (such as metabolism rates, how they vary among individuals, how personal responsibility is a major factor in the spread of obesity, etc.). The study shows that in order for an advocacy campaign to be most effective, it has to refrain from shifting blame for the disease from both the body and the way people individually respond to the body to environmental factors that are extraneous to the issue if considered in the proper context (such as the fact that fast food establishments in and of themselves do not cause obesity but rather that individuals whose body metabolism is not high and who consume too much of the fast food products is what leads to obesity—i.e., there is a lack of understanding of one’s own body and its needs and a lack of control/responsibility in terms of being accountable for one’s own decisions). The study is helpful in showing that advocacy campaigns should target the issue in question in a way that does not make the beneficiary into a “victim” or a “passive” agent in the situation but rather into an active role player who must assume responsibility and raise his or her own awareness level about that true causes of the spread of the disease.
With these two studies in mind, it is apparent that an effective advocacy campaign that focuses on combating obesity must be evidence-based and must engage participants by encouraging them to take an active role in understanding their own place in the fight. It must empower them instead of shift blame to external forces and focus solely on negating them; it must promote accountability among individuals and teach them how their bodies differ and how every person must be responsibility for his or her own eating decisions. It must base this approach on evidence so that it can effectively address the issue.
A plan for a health advocacy campaign that seeks to combat obesity should focus on identifying critical factors in the spread of obesity—i.e., how personal dietary and exercise habits impact the onset of obesity and how every body requires unique understanding (since everyone’s body is different). The proposed policy solution is to promote a frank interaction between doctors and patients, as advocated by Doroghazi (2015) so that patients understand that their weight problem is their personal responsibility and that they are not passive victims of environmental factors beyond their control. The objectives of this policy is to empower doctors with evidence who can then empower patients through direct and frank communication of the facts—which are that obesity is deadly and that patients must take responsibility for their own dietary and exercise habits in order to fight against it. This policy is aimed at encouraging physicians to be more open and direct with patients instead of attempting to couch the discussion in ways that really do not benefit the patient—for example, by lamenting the popularity of soda and junk food. Instead, physicians must be bold, as Doroghazi (2015) states and face the evidence, as Giang et al. (2008) show, which is that “your obesity cannot be blamed on the fast food or carbonated beverage industry or on anyone or anything else. You weigh too much because you eat too much. Your health and your weight are your responsibility” (Doroghazi, 2015, p. 214).
In conclusion, a health advocacy campaign should be evidence-based and focused on promoting accountability. The campaign should be evidence-based because the facts are what drive the policy. A campaign that is not guided by facts will be misdirected and inefficient. At the same time, a campaign should be aimed at empowering patients and encouraging them to take responsibility for their own lives to help combat the spread of disease. In the case of obesity, this is easily achieved by encouraging physicians to be honest with patients and to identify the issues that help spread obesity. For a campaign aimed at curbing the spread of obesity, doctors should focus on indicating to patients what factors help lead to obesity (diet and exercise) and how patients themselves can be more accountable.

References
Doroghazi, R. (2015). A candid discussion of obesity. The American Journal of
Medicine, 128(3): 213-214.
Giang, T., Karpyn, A., Laurison, H. B., Hillier, A., & Perry, R. D. (2008). Closing the
grocery gap in underserved communities: the creation of the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 14(3), 272-279.
Mitchell, N., Catenacci, V., Wyatt, H. R., & Hill, J. O. (2011). Obesity: overview of an
epidemic. The Psychiatric clinics of North America, 34(4), 717-732.