Nursing
Obesity prevalence is alarmingly high in the United States, especially among young people. About 20% of American youth are obese (Ogden, Carroll, Kit, & Flegal, 2014). Being overweight or obese in childhood has been shown in empirical studies to lead to premature death and physical morbidity in adulthood (Reilly & Kelly, 2011). Therefore, it is critical to prepare a health plan of lifelong learning for this population. A health care intervention program targeting young people in America will include schools and other stakeholders, who can participate in broad public awareness and intervention campaigns. This is because schools play an integral role in the lives of children, and can help parents and communities make choices that support health and a lifetime of learning about healthy eating and lifestyle factors.
The risk factors associated with childhood obesity include parental obesity, early body mass index rebound, more than eight hours per week spent watching television, catch-up growth, first year weight gain, and sleep duration in the toddler years (Reilly, Armstrong, et al., 2005). Therefore, it is relatively easy to identify the children who are at risk by the time they enter the kindergarten year. Educators can become aware of these risk factors. School officials can also perform regular check-ups on all students, which they may not be able to receive at home or by the primary care physician due to such things as parental ability to afford health care. Therefore, one of the first and most important parts of the health care plan to reduce childhood obesity is to have schools be aware of the risk factors and identify the specific children who are at risk as early as possible.
Early childhood is the starting point for the intervention. The proposed health plan comprises all twelve years of school, dividing the cohort into five specific age groups with specific targeted interventions at each point. The first age group will include kindergarten and first-grade children. The second group...
The third group will comprise children in grades 6-8, the fourth group in grades 9 and 10, and finally, the oldest students in grades 11 and 12 will be addressed in a separate group due to their reaching the age of maturity and a critical point for developing lifelong learning habits. Each of these age groups presents unique challenges and opportunities for health care workers, nurses, public health officials, teachers, parents, and policy makers. Parental involvement will vary at each of these stages, as will the type of intervention and the stakeholders involved, as follows.
In kindergarten and first grade, parents, teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders will be involved in identifying the risk factors for obesity. Children themselves will be least involved in the health care program at this stage due to their near total dependency on adults for their structure and routine. The school and teachers will work with the parents in soliciting information about lifestyle and the home environment. Parents will be evaluated for their weight, because parental obesity is clearly connected to childhood obesity (Reilly, Armstrong, et al., 2005). Whether or not the parents used infant feeding formulas instead of breast feeding, and the level of sugary beverages in the child's diet are also factors that should be taken into account when evaluating the risk factors for obesity at this early stage. Research shows that feeding formulas and sugary beverages can be significant predictors of childhood obesity, and can help stakeholders identify the children at highest risk (Reilly, Armstrong, et al., 2005). This is exactly why the schools should be on board with developing lunch programs with the healthiest possible ingredients, including a low amount of processed foods, low amount of sugar and salt in the meals.
Dietary factors will remain the primary component of the long-term health care intervention over all age groups. However, exercise also plays a major role…
