Inequity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in relation to childhood obesity

Health and Society
Assessment 3
Extended ResponseTemplate
Using you health issue from assessment item 2:
Answer all of the three questions below based upon this onehealth issue.
Each extended response should be approximately 500 words in length each.
The reference list for all three extended response should be provided under the
references heading of this template.

Question 1
Discuss two different reasons for inequity between Indigenous Australians and
non-Indigenous Australians in relation to your identified health issue.
While analysing the differences in health status of indigenous and non-indigenous
Australians, their social determinants of health emerges as the primary reason for
the underlying inequality and healthcare complication (Singleton et al. 2014).
Therefore, this would be primarily discussed in this section so that the disparity and
the reason of inequality associated with childhood obesity could be easily
understood.
The primary reason for such inequality among indigenous and non-indigenous
individuals is associated their illiteracy rates and lower level of awareness about
factors that could increase childhood obesity. This is an important social determinant
lack of which affects the community adversely as they are unaware of their loopholes
as mentioned in the research of Saprii et al. (2015). Wilks and Wilson (2015) also
mentioned that the rate of education is significantly lower in indigenous community
compared to non- indigenous community and hence consequently, their income
level, employment, their achievement of healthcare also compromised. Further the
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2017) also provided a report that the socio
economic status of the indigenous community affected their attainment of education,
employment and hence, consequently, their education, healthcare knowledge,
awareness level and knowledge of preventive measures or health behaviour
affected. Hence, education or lack of health literacy is one of the primary reasons
due to which childhood obesity rates are higher in indigenous community compared
to non- indigenous community (Singleton et al. 2014).
The second reason for such disparity among indigenous community’s healthcare and
their high prevalence of childhood obesity is their improper diet and nutrition regime
that affects their body mass index and makes them prone to diabetes. As per Saprii
et al. (2015), the community is associated with improper green vegetable and fruit
intake and their diet is primarily consists of sweet and high carbohydrate meals. As
per Brown et al. (2014), these are the primary reason for childhood obesity as with
higher consumption of carbohydrate could lead to high risk of obesity and hence
these are the reason due to which this community suffer from high risk of obesity and
associated risk factors compared to the non-indigenous community. Further as per
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2017), the rate of consumption of junk
food is also higher in indigenous community compared to the non-indigenous group
and it was seen that the rates of junk food consumption is 41% and 36% among
indigenous and non-indigenous communities respectively. Hence, the data collected
from Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2017) mentioned that more than 30%
of the children that are suffering from obesity among indigenous community.
Therefore, it could be seen that due to lack of socio economic status, improper diet
and nutrition, economic instability, and geographical factors are associated with
increased prevalence of childhood obesity among the indigenous community.
Hence, lack of health literacy, education and improper diet and nutrition are among
the primary reasons due to which inequalities between the indigenous and non-

indigenous community related to the childhood obesity increased.
Question 2
Provide one example of a Primary Health Care intervention that is addressing
this health issue for Indigenous Australians. Explain the impact this intervention
is having on reducing inequity.