Snap-Fit; Obesity Intervention Plan
A team of 2 students and I worked on a semester long project on the problem of Obesity and how to prevent this condition. This project encouraged us to research factors that contribute to the prevalence of obesity among children and adults. We heavily researched Social, Environmental, and Behavioral determinants that led to higher cases of Obesity. This project also entailed researching effective and ineffective methods to reduce obesity, as well as coming up with an obesity prevention method. We created a hypothetical “Mississippi Gets Fit” program in which all public schools in Mississippi would encourage and mandate students to modify their exercise and dietary habits. This project was split into 4 parts and allowed me to gain a better understanding of how to utilize the various subfields in Public Health in order to create and implement health related programs and/or interventions.
Part 1: Describing the Burden of the Problem
The first part of this semester long project was to gain a better understanding the definition of what Obesity is, the symptoms and causes, and the prevalence of Obesity in the World, specifically the United States. According to the Mayo Clinic (2015), obesity can be defined as a condition where excess fat is present in the body, and the condition can lead to serious health problems of the individual. A few signs and symptoms of obesity are difficulty sleeping, breathlessness, back and joint pains, and always feeling tired (Health Direct, 2013). Life-threatening conditions can include high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, strokes, and coronary heart disease (Health Direct, 2013).
There are many economic, social, and psychological factors that play a role in the likelihood of becoming obese, and also managing obesity. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC; n.d.) the costs for obesity in the year 2008 were relatively high, $147 billion. This number gives insight to how big of a problem this is in the US. Some psychological consequences on individuals with obesity are low-self esteem, depression, and eating disorders (Mills, 2005).
Figure 1-1: In 2013-2014, the obesity rates in America range from Blacks being 48.4% obese and the Asians who are 12.6% obese. The races in between are Latino at 42.6%, American Indians at 42.3%, and Whites at 36.4% (State of Obesity, n.d.).
Figure 1-2: The data in this graph shows how obesity has increased over the years. In 1960 the percentage was 13.4 and in 2006 it was 35.1 % (CDC, n.d.). This shows how rapidly the frequency of obesity is increasing over time.
Figure 2-1: Our health promotion video clearly defines obesity, and provides statistics of obesity prevalence within adults, and children as well. The video is an animation, thus it is appealing to students as well as the adults. Furthermore the video provides the benefits of exercising and having a healthy diet. This video was created on PowToon.
Part 2: An Ecological Approach to Understanding the Determinants (Causes) of the Problem
This portion of the project involved understanding the Behavioral, Social, and Environmental determinants of Obesity prevalence in the United States. The assignment encouraged each of us to take the role of a Behavioral Scientist, Social Scientist, and Environmental Health Scientist in order to research existing literature that demonstrates how these determinants lead to higher rates of obesity.
Behavioral Scientist: The Centers for Disease control conducted a study, and the goal was to determine the prevalence of obesity in adults aged 50 and over, across the United States. In order to achieve this goal the researchers analyzed data from a Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). The study found that 27.5% of all the participants reported that they do not engage in any physical activity outside of their daily activities. The analysts found that the prevalence of physical inactivity increased as the age increased, and was more prevalent in Hispanics and women.
Social Scientist: The main purpose of the study was to find out whether low social capital is a risk factor for obesity and the second was to examine whether such an association can still be observed when adjusted for income, age, diet, drinking habits, and exercise. In order to achieve this purpose, The Austrian Health Interview Survey (ATHIS) was the database used for analysis. The study found that obesity was found to be significantly associated with higher age, lower income, migration, lower frequency of exercise, lower education, and higher meat intake.
Environmental Scientist: The objectives of this study was to examine the association between neighborhood-level food availability and obesity, individual characteristics were used as controls. The methods used was a cross-sectional study that included a random digit-dial sample of 5688 community-dwelling adults (50 to 74 years old) living in 1644 areas in New Jersey, and multilevel structural equation models were created to underlie notions representing fast-food establishments and storefronts, which included convenience stores, bars and pubs, grocery stores. The results indicated that people living in neighborhoods with a higher density of fast food and storefronts are more likely to be obese when individual characteristics are controlled.
Part 3: Policy Brief Planning Exercise
Part 3 of this project encourage us to specify our target audience for our intervention and to create a policy brief.
The ultimate goal of the policy brief is to convince the Mississippi Department of Education, specifically their Office of Healthy Schools, that implementing an intervention similar to the Active Schools Program (ASP) in Pennsylvania could reduce the prevalence of obesity of children in their schools. The ASP is a program that required middle school students to engage in physical activity for 30 minutes every day.
The Mississippi Department of Education provides resources and policies that are needed for Mississippi public schools. The audience’s priority is to create an excellent educational system for students in order for them to succeed in college and their prospective careers (“About MDE”, 2012). Within the Department of Education, there is a branch called the Office of Healthy Schools and their goal is to improve the health of students all across the state of Mississippi. The Office of Healthy schools believes that “A healthy school is a vital part of a healthy community, and successful collaboration is required from school administrators, staff, students, parents and the community” (Office of Healthy Schools., n.d.). With the audience having this mindset they are more likely to accept our proposal because of their interest of reducing health issues. This is their current health policy in place: The school now implements Forty-five minutes of health education and 150 minutes of physical education/physical activity are required each week for students in grades K-8 and a 1⁄2 Carnegie Unit for graduation for grades 9-12 (House, Benton, Clements, Philley, & Dieckman, 2013).
Part 4: Creative Brief for Campaign
Specific Objectives:
● By 2020, we want to reduce the prevalence of high body mass index among children and
adolescents aged 2 to 17 in Meriwether County from (20.4%) to (19.5%) (Davila-Payan,
DeGuzman, Johnson, Serban, Swann, 2015).
● By 2020, we want to increase physical activity among the students in the Meriwether
County School districts to over 30 minutes/day.
● By 2020, increase by 20% the number of students in Meriwether County that exercise at least 60 minutes a day.
Theoretical Foundation:
The individual level of theory and reasoned action and planned behavior model was used to figure out the best way to appeal to our targeted audience. We would first change the behavioral beliefs that students may have about physical activity and eating healthy. Through our Snap Fit intervention we can demonstrate that eating healthy and exercising can be fun but rewarding as well. After creating a positive perception of exercising and eating healthy their attitudes towards these two determinants will change, and encourage the students to adapt to this new behavioral lifestyle.
The social cognitive theory explains why we focused on providing the students with goody bags, filled with exercising games ex: jump rope. Some students may not have access to parks or recreational centers where they can exercise, therefore we have made it convenient for them, in hopes to encourage them to participate in these exercises games. In the intervention demonstration the exercise activities are taught and the recipes for healthy foods are available to them to refer back to as needed.
