Adolescence and Mental Health: Health Policies, Health Promotion, Advocacy, Equity, Rights and Access

Adolescence and Mental
Health
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1
Table of Contents
Name the topic.................................................................................................................................2
Identify and discuss health policies that apply to the topic.............................................................2
Applying principles of health promotion, and primary health care relevant to the topic................3
Discuss haw advocacy applies to the topic......................................................................................4
Applying principles of equity, rights and access to the issue..........................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................6

2
Name the topic
A health issue for adolescence
Identify and discuss health policies that apply to the topic
The health issue related to adolescents is an eating disorder. An eating disorder is most
commonly diagnosed among female adolescents, and around one million Australians are affected
by this health issue (Azzopardi et al., 2018). Common eating disorder includes bulimia nervosa,
anorexia nervosa and binge-eating disorders. Health policies means the decision, actions and
plans that are undertaken to accomplish certain health care goals within the society. Therefore,
several policies are used by this country’s government to reduce the adverse impact of eating
disorder health issue in relation to their health status. The primary international policy that is
used by most of the country of the world, including Australia is The Eating Disorders
Awareness, Prevention and Education Act (Maher, Toohey and Ferguson, 2016). It is a policy as
well as an act that helps the people to identify their eating disorder problems, and also it helps
them to increase their awareness regarding this issue so that they can take preventive measures
for reducing the adverse impact of this health issue.
Besides this, another policy that has use for this chosen health problem is the National Mental
Health Policy 2008 (Gratwick‐Sarll et al., 2016). The policy is useful for promoting mental
health, help a person to recover from illness and also prevent mental illness to those people who
are suffering from eating disorder in Australia. The primary role of this policy is to reduce the
disability, distress and mortality associated with mental health problems occurring in an
individual. As an eating disorder is one of the common health issues of the Australian, therefore
most of the adolescents need to follow this policy for getting rid of this problem. Apart from this,
the National Mental Health Policy, 2008 are most preferably suitable for this eating disorder of
the adolescents because the policy has renewed their commitment after a fixed period for
improving the mental health system of Australia (Mitchison and Mond, 2015). Besides this,
another role of this policy is to reduce the impact of these risk factors among adolescents. Hence
it is considered as one of the valid policy that helps the people to get appropriate care when they