Obesity Awareness and Advocacy Strategy

The assignment provides an overview of the obesity problem in Australia, highlighting its increasing prevalence and the need for effective advocacy strategies. It discusses the importance of identifying target segments, such as parents, schools, and caregivers, and utilizing media advocacy to raise awareness about the dangers of obesity and promote individual care and development practices.

Advocacy Strategy

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Health Problem along with its solution.......................................................................................3
Develop an advocacy strategy for this public health issue.........................................................6
Identify the indicators will use to assess the affectivity of advocacy campaign.......................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFRENCES.................................................................................................................................11
.......................................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Advocacy strategy is the combination of approaches, techniques as well as messages
through which the planner seeks to accomplish goals and objectives related to advocacy
(Chinnakali and et.al., 2013). In this report, advocacy strategy is given related to health issue
facing by the population of Australia. Below mention assignment is going to explain health
problem i.e., overweight and obesity faced by most of the people now a days. Apart from this,
reason of the problem along with its solution is given with the help of advocacy strategy.
Moreover with this assistance of media and communication strategy message is provided to
wider public. It also throws light on issues arising because of advocacy campaign.
MAIN BODY
Health Problem along with its solution
The age ratio of Australian is rising as compared to earlier time but half of the
population is suffering from at least one chronic condition which is affecting their quality of life.
In Australia the leading cause of ill health and serious health issue is chronic condition of a
human being. The main reason of chronic condition is linked to their lifestyle factor such as
overweight and obesity, insufficient physical activities, tobacco smoking and alcohol use but
young population of Australia have the signs of positive behaviour change. Moreover the most
common disease in respective country is overweight and obesity.
Good health is the condition of a person is not suffering from any disease and is feeling
healthy. Health and well-being of a person can be influenced by many things, but it mostly
depends on two main aspects:
 Determinants:- It is the interrelated characteristic that influence a person's health. Interventions:- It is the activities that we do to improve our health or to avoid illness.
Health problem to be addressed through advocacy – Obesity is the health issue founded
in people at large level now a days (Coffman and Beer,2015). It is the condition which is
associated with having extra amount of body fact that is defined by environmental factors as well
as genetic. Obesity result in several other health issues also such as diabetes, hypertension, heart
diseases, types of cancers (breast, endometrial and colon), stroke and so on. Apart from this,
Obesity is classified as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or greater.
3

Importance of the issue – Obesity result in several other health issues also in future
which are more than 40 medical conditions. Particular person who have obesity are at risk of
developing 1 or more than that serious diseases. There are several most prevalent medical issues
related to obesity are: High blood pressure, High cholesterol, Diabetes, heart diseases, stroke,
Osteoarthritis, cancers and so on. According to the data of 2014-15, children's and adolescents
are more overweight or obese in the age of 10-13 as well as 14-17 compare of the same age
group in last 20 years (Overweight and obesity in Australia: a birth cohort analysis, 2018). As
the times goes on percentage of people suffering from obesity is increasing in specific age group.
For instance, in 1990-1993 9.3% people of age group 22-25 are suffering from obesity compare
to 1970-1973 it has been increase by 6.2%.
Reasons for Obesity: There are several reasons which result in obesity for individual person.
Some of the main reason are as follows :-
 Genetics :- Science show that in obesity genetic plays a important role, children of a
obesity parents most likely to be suffered from obesity. It is not always predetermine,
eating habit of a person majorly effect on genes. Now non-industrialized societies are
rapidly adopting western diet which cause obesity in them.
 Environment :- In shaping of a person's lifestyle and habit environment plays an
important role. Now a day many things are influencing a person which impact on their
health decision like walking is getting replaced by driving car, technology is replacing
the physical activities, nutrition is overcome by convenience and fast food (Fernando
Chang-Muyand Congress, 2015). Population of respective country are more influence by
today's culture which cause obesity in them. Behaviour :- Now a day it is easy to adopt unhealthy behaviour over the healthy. Main
reason behind obesity is food choice, physical activities done and amount of efforts a
person done to be healthy. It is Australian people's behaviour to consume more calories,
involve less in physical activities because they are more influence by television,
computer and other technical gadgets.
Solution for obesity :- There are several methods available to address obesity:-
 Behaviour modification and physical activities :- As discussed above behaviour is the
important key of obesity. If a person modifies their behaviour they can avoid disease
which developed in obesity affected person. Few suggestion for behaviour modification:
4

Adopt healthy eating habit, Increase physical activities, Engage themselves in
extracurricular activities, Set goal to manage weight and Follow healthy diet routine
(Harding and et.al., 2013). It is a challenging task to make solid commitment to change
behaviour or lifestyle, for that a person should involve his family and friends and ask
them to help change unhealthy behaviour into healthy one.
 Commercial Programs: - If a person wants to overcome obesity, they may participate in
commercial programs or non-clinical programs like book, web-site, counsellor or support
groups. These are the privately owned weight lose chain which help obesity people to get
overcome from it.
 Physician-supervised weight-loss :- It is the treatment which is provided by licensed
healthcare professional such as doctor, nurse, registered dietician and psychologist in a
clinic setting. In these programs typically services are offered like nutrition education to
improve and reduce health, pharmacotherapy, physical and behaviour activities which
help in managing weight.
By following above suggestions, one can avoid the risk which is associated with obesity
like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease,
osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and respiratory problems, some cancers (endometrial, breast and
colon) etc.. .
Solution of the problem through advocacy strategy – obesity is one of the biggest public
health challenges facing by the population in Australia. Half of the respective nation people are
overweight or obese i.e., 60% of Australian adults are going through this health issue and almost
10% are severely obese (Australia’s Obesity Statistics in 2017, 2018). At least one-fourth
population of children and adolescents are overweight. Through media advocacy strategy
solution to the problem of obesity can be given because it involve several tools and techniques
which will help in easy communication as well as providing information to people. Below
mention are the ways by which media advocacy strategy is applied for giving solution to people
related to obesity :-
 By using social media tool such as Facebook, Instagram, tweeter and so on message can
be given to population of Australia. It is the best advocacy technique for transferring
information because now a days people are addict of use social media.
5

 Magazines and newspaper is also media tool in which articles related to obesity along
with their future health problems and solution can be print. It will also give impact
because adults read newspapers on daily basis whereas, some people are addicted
towards magazines.
Develop an advocacy strategy for this public health issue
Media advocacy strategy is new technique which emerging in the public health
community. By utilising media tool goals related to promotion of public health policies can be
achieved. There are several media advocacy tools which is known as primary method for
capturing public eyes and assist in solving issue related to obesity :- News media - Television, newspaper and radio. Public service announcements – These are similar to Paid advertisements but PSA are
free because broadcasting stations utilise them for fulfilling regulation needed for serving
public interest. Press releases – It is the written form of information usually printed on one page. Press Conferences – These are the media events in that present a statement, usually
about an achievement or newsworthy event relating to program, answer questions, or
make announcements to a roomful of people who represent various media outlets.
 Paid Advertisement – It is the services which is given against money, paid advertisement
includes pamphlets, newspaper prints, TV advertisement and so on.
Stakeholder:- It is a person, group or organisation which have their own interest in the
business firm (Langford and et.al., 2013). They may affect or can get affected by the company's
action, objectives and policies. The stakeholder is interested in the triumph of the project and
help in sponsoring the particular project inside or outside the company. They may affect a project
in both ways negative or positive. The person whose can be the stakeholder are project leader,
senior management, project team members, project customer, resource manager, line manager,
project user group, product testers, consultant to the project, subcontractors to the project etc..
Coalition and gaining support from stakeholders – In media advocacy strategy
stakeholders play important role in getting aware to the people about obesity. Government can
also conduct several programs in schools, colleges as well as road side also which includes act
and other activities for awareness of the people that overweight or obesity is major issue. Along
with this, in schools teacher can also arrange separate session related to obesity awareness of
6

students. Because adolescents overweight ratio is increasing and they are not much mature who
can understand things by reading or writing. For them activities like games, drama, sports and so
on must be organise by teacher for educating them (Logie, 2012). Along with this, stakeholders
help in doing research and finding data that who much people are going through obesity and
which age group. So according to which proper media advocacy strategy can be applied as well
as formed for the people who are going through this in appropriate manner.
Engaging and empowering the community – Community is divided in three parts who
are suffering from obesity these are as follows :- Children's – Reaching to children's is very easy because they use digital media tool daily.
In respective age group people obesity ratio is increasing because of fast food trend.
Through digital tools such as TV, social media message can be provided that avoid fast
food because they are harmful for health. Youngsters – Magazines, Facebook, tweeter, Instagram is the best tools through which
message related to future effect of obesity can be provided to young generation of
Australia. Most of the people of this age group are doing job which may be sitting also
and result in obesity. So to overcome with this they have to add physical exercise in their
daily routines.
Old age – Print media is the best advocacy strategy for reaching old age people and providing
them information that they have to take major steps to come out with this health issue. Because
in future it will result in several major problems.
7

Media advocacy and communication spreading message about Obesity – Media
advocacy is the strategic utilisation of tool which help in making news such as TV, radio and
newspapers to boost public debate, generate community support for modifications in community
norms as well as policies (Roy, 2013). Advocating for the goals of safe, healthy and prosperous
communities, identifying barriers to strategic policy implementation and sharing current research
through news making all help policy makers and the general public to more fully engage in
creating systemic changes that improve the world we live in.
 Newspaper:- This is the most effective and powerful form of media advertising and
referred as “a store house of information”. All the valuable information from all aspects
one can find in newspaper and it have widest circulation and read by most of the
population. If awareness article of obesity is publish in newspaper it can be widely
reachable and influence most of the population.
 Magazines:- It is the one of the attractive tool of the media advocacy which helps in
reaching target market quickly and easy. If article related to Obesity published in
magazine it will assist the population of Austria to getting aware about the respective
issue because young Australians are more found to reading magazines in their free time.
 Outdoor Advertising:- This media advocacy include numerous different media like
posters, placards, electric display, sandwich-man, sky writing, bus, train and tram
advertising. If government of Austria advertise about the awareness of obesity on
following media it will influencive and reachable to all people.
 Specially Advertising:- Through this type of media advocacy government can give free
gifts like diaries, purses, paper weight and calender to everyone with the prints of
awareness of obesity which empower them about it.
 Television:- It is the media advocacy which is most effective, impressive and leave long
lasting impression on the mind of viewer. So, if the awareness of obesity is shown on
television it will empower most of the population and give ever lasting effect on them.
Campaign:- Government of Austria can organized campaign in various places and aware
population about the obesity and its effect.

Ethical issues arising from your advocacy campaign - While conducting a advocacy
campaign it is required to considering ethics and norms properly in order to working effectively.
Through these practices, an organisation can build positive relation with service users. For these
appropriate working process, government also provide their support effective initiatives in
working awareness. Unlawful act can create ethical issues for these working campaign as -
 Respect for individuals – For the individual who provide their contribution in these
survey, it is required to provide respects to others. Disrespectful act can arise ethical
issues in which people have authority to file complain against them.
 Confidentiality – Media advocacy campaign needs to create confidentiality and data
protection practices of individual's information who are suffering from any kind of
disease. Through this they can build positive relation with individual and people can take
initiative for providing information regarding proper research. If an organisation does not
keep disclose information of any person than affected individual can make claim against
them.
Identify the indicators will use to assess the affectivity of advocacy campaign
Obesity prevention is a most challenging factor that requires some effective program that should
be initiated by governmental bodies and local organisations. The advocacy program are basically
conducted to constituents awareness for specific topic. Media advocacy is a most effective factor
that assist in spread impacts of obesity on children (Sandgren and et.al., 2012). These kind of
activities are basically conducted by targeting a specific segment of society who are rapidly
affected by specific disease. All the working and ongoing practices are required to monitoring
properly in order to analysing the effectiveness of these campaign. There are different analysis
criteria is determined below as -
Analysis the effectiveness of Community-based interventions by identifying number of
individuals who are engaged in obesity reduction practices – Community based intervention
and social marketing campaign are basically initiated to spread awareness of prevention for
specific disease. Most community based interventions are works to address number of individual
who are suffering from the issue of obesity. They are basically targeting a effective segment an
obese and overweight subsets of society. In these practices schools, parents, caregivers needs to
be engaged with the campaign for the healthier development of child. Now a days, maximum
individuals show their interest in these kind of activities in order to prevent their child's habit
from overweighting practices.

Survey for the Analyse of individual's lifestyle – For an organisation, it is required to
conduct survey practices that assist in analysing lifestyle of individual. Survey works as a
indicator that provide information for the effectiveness of media advocacy campaign that
conducted to gathering data on particular topic. All these activities are based on analysing
number of individual who are suffering from the issue of obesity due to lack of awareness and
guidance. Therefore, it is required to monitoring working practices of media advocacy campaign
that initiate for public awareness programs. In this process, data can be gather through interview
and questionnaire sessions that assist to identifying changes in individuals lifestyle after getting
knowledge through media advocacy premises.
Identify interested segment of society – For the effectiveness of media advocacy
campaign it is required to identifying interested segment as parents of child, school and
caretakers (Terrell, 2012). Now a day, child leave habits of physical activities as sport and
furthermore are change. They usually spend their maximum time in watching television shows
and on internet suffering. All these aspects impact adversely on individual's lifestyle. Therefore,
it is required to provide awareness for the individual care and development practices.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion it has been concluded that, in Australia one of the major
health issue facing by the people is obesity. This is because of environment, genetic and daily
routines of individual as well as compare to past year percentage of people going through obesity
increase. Moreover, advocacy strategy is that which involve several approaches and technique
that will assist population of Australia in overcoming through obesity. Apart from this, media is
the advocacy strategy which is utilising for providing information that obesity is dangerous and
have to take major steps to overcome this.

REFRENCES
Books and Journal
Chinnakali, P. and et.al., 2013. Level of awareness about tuberculosis in urban slums:
Implications for advocacy and communication strategy planning in the National
program. Lung India: official organ of Indian Chest Society. 30(2). p.139.
Coffman, J. and Beer, T., 2015. The advocacy strategy framework. Washington DC: Center for
Evaluation Innovation.
Fernando Chang-Muy, J.D. and Congress, E.P. Eds., 2015. Social work with immigrants and
refugees: Legal issues, clinical skills, and advocacy. Springer Publishing Company.
Harding, R. and et.al., 2013. Research into palliative care in sub-Saharan Africa. The Lancet
Oncology. 14(4). pp.e183-e188.
Langford, R. and et.al., 2013. Professionalization as an advocacy strategy: a content analysis of
Canadian child care social movement organizations’ 2008 discursive resources. Early
Years. 33(3). pp.302-317.
Logie, D. E., 2012. An evaluation of a public health advocacy strategy to enhance palliative care
provision in Zambia. BMJ supportive & palliative care. 2(3). pp.264-269.
Roy, S.K., 2013. Consequences of customer advocacy. Journal of Strategic Marketing. 21(3).
pp.260-276.
Sandgren, A. and et.al., 2012. Childhood tuberculosis: progress requires an advocacy strategy
now. European Respiratory Journal. 40(2). pp.294-297.
Terrell, S. R., 2012. Mixed-methods research methodologies. The qualitative report. 17(1).
pp.254-280.
Online
Overweight and obesity in Australia: a birth cohort analysis. 2018.[Online]. Available
Through<https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/overweight-obesity/overweight-obesity-australia-
birth-cohort-analysis/contents/table-of-contents>
Australia’s Obesity Statistics in 2017. 2018.[Online]. Available
Through<https://eatingdisordersaustralia.org.au/australias-obesity-statistics-2017/>
11