Introduction
Changes in lifestyle, coupled with poor feeding habits and lack of physical exercise have contributed to the rise in the cases of childhood obesity. There are various causes of childhood obesity that health care providers and parents or families need to understand to guarantee the well-being of their lids. The awareness of the possible causes of childhood obesity will help in the management of the condition and aid in the development of standard interventions that could help to eliminate the health issue. According to Johnson and Johnson (2015), unhealthy lifestyles, parents, and lack of physical exercise contribute to children suffering from childhood obesity. Güngör (2014) argues that health care providers may encounter challenges in their effort to manage the problem of childhood obesity and to develop social interventions. There is a need to understand the challenges that doctors experience when dealing with this health problem. Moreover, understanding the potential intervention mechanisms that are at the disposal of health care providers will help in the development of effective remedies.
One cannot address the issue of childhood obesity without considering the correlations between family dynamics and childhood obesity. Sahoo et al. (2015) adduce that although there are various strategies, which are used in the management of the issue of obesity among children in the community, the rate of childhood obesity is still on the rise. It calls for a need to formulate intervention mechanisms that bring together all the stakeholders. Moreover, health care providers ought to start education campaigns aimed at sensitizing communities on the dangers of childhood obesity and their responsibilities in combating the problem. The healthcare providers are obligated to ensure that the standard of health of patients is reliable. They can achieve this goal by identifying risks attributed to childhood obesity, formulating intervention methods, and taking the appropriate measures to mitigate the impacts of the health condition. Currently, health care providers have initiated numerous programs to deal with childhood obesity. In spite of the various programs that seek to address the issue of childhood obesity, the majority of which are narrow-focused, there is a need to develop multi-faceted interventions that deal with the varied factors that contributed to the health condition.
Background
According to Wang et al. (2015), learning about childhood obesity and its potential challenges is of critical importance because the health concern has attained the level of an epidemic in the world. Moreover, the health issue has contributed to children with the condition being at risk of contracting other illnesses such as cardiac arrest. Childhood obesity is of great concern in many nations. In the United States, at least 16% of children suffer from the condition while others are at risk of developing the illness unless measures are taken to protect the kids (Sahoo et al., 2015). Precisely, the condition affects children aged between 12 and 19.
The issue of childhood obesity is unlikely to be resolved soon. Sahoo et al. (2015) posit that communities will continue to witness a high number of cases of obesity if the condition is not addressed at early stages. Health care providers are unable to contain the problem due to poor lifestyles and lack of parental care. It is hard for doctors to influence what parents feed their children. Moreover, the cost of health care providers will rise, making it difficult for countries to guarantee quality medical services to patients. Childhood obesity is associated with other health risks like diabetes and heart disease. Hence, there is the need to deal with the health issue at an early stage to prevent patients from being predisposed to other chronic conditions.
Problem Analysis
Parents have been identified as the main contributors to the increasing cases of childhood obesity. This is attributed to the fact that despite health care providers playing their role in the management of the healthcare standards and training the public in how to deal with the condition, parents do little to help their kids. Most parents do not encourage their children to engage in outdoor activities. Instead, they allow them to stay in the house and watch television or play games on computers. Moreover, parents are blamed for allowing children to buy junk foods, which contributes to them becoming overweight. The other challenge that is attributed to the increasing cases of obesity among children is the problem of globalization. Specifically, this is seen to have caused a rise in the cases of inactivity among children, According to Rhee, Kessl, Lindback, Littman, and El-Kareh (2018), globalization, coupled with rising population growth has resulted in the construction of houses even in fields that were previously set aside for recreational facilities. Moreover, there are limited pedestrian paths for children to use for exercise. In this account, the children have ended up taking much of their time either watching television or interacting with friends via social media. Typically, this has resulted in rising cases of obesity.
Solutions
Policymakers are the primary stakeholders that help in the fight against childhood obesity. This is attributed to the fact that the information regarding the health issue is passed to policymakers to aid in the course of developing policies to facilitate the minimization of the cases of patients care challenges. Nonetheless, there is a possibility of parties having divergent opinions regarding the impacts of obesity on children. The policymakers may argue that the problem is significant. However, there are parents who may not have an idea of the challenges that the issue of obesity has on the health of the patients. Along these lines, opinions and education of all stakeholders are necessary to help in the reduction of the causes of conflicts.
According to the trend in the modern healthcare practice, the issue of childhood obesity is addressed with a one-sided approach. The majority of the existing programs are introduced to eliminate separate factors that influence obesity. They tend to target primary causes and develop a set of interventions to exclude them. Such measures prove to be insufficiently effective regarding the growing number of overweight children both in the USA and in the world. The study of the available literature on the topic allows one to conclude that the reasons for obesity among children are grounded on a variety of factors, such as family and upbringing conditions, environment, lifestyle, and cultural tendencies (Sahoo et al., 2015). Thus, there is an urgent need to utilize a multifaceted approach, which would facilitate the development of effective intervention mechanisms that rely on a range of related measures. These measures should incorporate school-based interventions, primary care-based interventions, and home programs. It is essential to raise awareness about the consequences of obesity on children’s health.
There is a need to incorporate special programs for schools, primary care units, and families in the introduced strategy. The programs are meant for educational and preventive purposes. While the effectiveness of the program implementation in schools and medical institutions might present a minimal challenge, the realization of the strategy at the family level may prove to be more complicated. According to a study conducted by Rhee et al. (2018), “lack of parent motivation and readiness to address obesity” was one of the main barriers preventing the successful implementation of the interventions (p. 4). Thus, even in the case of successful application of the program at the school and primary care levels, a poor contribution from the parents’ side would damage the overall result. The interventions require entailing more than physical culture and exercises, or pediatric check-ups (Ten Hoor, Plasqui, Schols, & Kok, 2017; Rhee et al., 2018). The introduced solution aims to incorporate the aspects of physical activity, obesity-related health issues awareness, and psychological readiness, which will be promoted in schools, medical institutions, and families.
It can be ascertained that the issue of childhood obesity needs to be addressed swiftly due to the continuous increase and the possible repercussions of the challenge. In this regard, it can be deduced that the issue of obesity among children has a translating effect in which the overweight children will grow to be obese adults. In the project, the identification of the causes of childhood obesity is carried out with the intention of collecting the right information on the issue of minimizing the problem of the patients suffering from other health challenges including blood pressure, diabetes, and heart conditions.
Benefits
All of the interventions should align with the directed approach introduced by Ten Hoor et al. (2017) and must have an explicit explanation of the adverse effects of excess weight on children’s health and their longevity in adulthood. The introduced solution presents multiple benefits due to the multifaceted approach it utilizes. Other programs tend to combine only one or two areas of influence and fail to deliver the ultimate result, which is the reduction of the rate of childhood obesity. The current system of intervention unifies three main spheres of influence to address all the possible ways to eliminate obesity as a health threat to children.
The chart shows the interconnection between the various components of the obesity solution programs and their influence on the overall result. Firstly, the combination of school-based interventions with primary care-based intercessions excluding home programs cannot be effective due to the lack of parental motivation. Secondly, the combination of primary care-based interventions and family programs does not allow educational influence. Finally, when school-based interventions are combined with family programs only, health care is excluded, which diminishes the effectiveness of the interventions. However, the collaboration of all three components results in the realization of an effective solution to the issue.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the introduced project addresses the childhood obesity problem and highlights the inconsistency between the existing programs and their implementation in real life. In a situation where the utilization of one-sided approaches fails to deliver a noticeable reduction of childhood obesity rates, a multifaceted approach is urgently needed. Interdisciplinary addressing of the issues is capable of empowering the scope of influential parties and contributing to the overall result, which is the minimization of the number of overweight children. Thus, the program has to ensure that there is mutual inclusion of all parties (schools, primary care units, and parents) that are interested in the realization of positive resolution of the problem of childhood obesity.
The introduced solution embraces a system of interdependent interventions within three main domains: schools, primary care institutions, and families. It is asserted that a combination of any of the two components would fail to deliver the estimated outcomes. Only a complex program incorporating the interventions within each of the three facets will be sufficiently effective in minimization of an overweight tendency among children. The unified efforts of educators, medical workers, and, most importantly, parents will enable the achievement of positive results. Applying the necessary measures at every level of influence is vital. In comparison with other solutions employed to the problem of obese children, the current program introduces a complex of specific measures. Such a program aims to raise awareness about the adverse effects of excess weight on health and longevity, prevent childhood obesity, and, ultimately, reduce the rates of obese children in the USA.
References
Güngör, K. N. (2014). Overweight and obesity in children and adolescents. Journal of Clinical Research in Pediatric Endocrinology, 6(3), 129-143.
Johnson, J. A., & Johnson, A. M. (2015). Urban-rural differences in childhood and adolescent obesity in the United States: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Childhood Obesity, 11(3), 233-240.
Rhee, K. E., Kessl, S., Lindback, S., Littman, M., & El-Kareh, R. E. (2018). Provider views on childhood obesity management in primary care settings: A mixed methods analysis. BMC Health Services Research. 18(1).
Sahoo, K., Sahoo, B., Choudhury, A. K., Sofi, N. Y., Kumar, R., & Bhadoria, A. S. (2015). Childhood obesity: Causes and consequences. Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, 4(2), 187-192.
Ten Hoor, G. A., Plasqui, G., Schols, A. M. W. J., & Kok, G. (2017). Development, implementation, and evaluation of an interdisciplinary theory- and evidence-based intervention to prevent childhood obesity: Theoretical and methodological lessons learned. Frontiers in Public Health, 5.
Wang, Y., Cai, L., Wu, Y., Wilson, R. F., Weston, C., Fawole, O., … Segal, J. (2015). What childhood obesity prevention programs work? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Obesity Reviews: An Official Journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 16(7), 547-565.