Program Plan Proposal for Obesity in School-going Young Adults of Australia

This report is a program plan proposal which will target school-going obese or overweight young adults of Australia. An issue based Community Needs Assessment (CNA) intended to gather useful community data on challenges associated with prevalence of obesity in Australia. The data gathered was utilized to formulate a sound health promotion program for prevalence of obesity or overweight among school going young adults of Australia. The developed project plan will reduce the prevalence of obesity in this community.

Introduction
Obesity is a public health issue which is characterized by excessive fat content in the body fat
(Müller & Geisler, 2017). It is considered as a risk factor for a range of serious health
complications (Sharma & Scherer, 2017). Obesity is a public health issue worldwide (Müller,
Braun, Enderle, & Bosy-Westphal, 2016). An estimated 1.9 billion adults come under the
category of overweight or obese (World Health Organisation, 2017). The prevalence of
overweight and obesity is a chief public health concern in Australia as well (Australian Institute
of Health and Welfare, 2017). Australian youth can be classified as obese (aph.gov.au, 2018).
This report is a program plan proposal which will target school-going obese or overweight young
adults of Australia. An issue based Community Needs Assessment (CNA) intended to gather
useful community data on challenges associated with prevalence of obesity in Australia. The data
gathered was utilized to formulate a sound health promotion program for prevalence of obesity
or overweight among school going young adults of Australia. The developed project plan will
reduce the prevalence of obesity in this community.
Community Needs Assessment (CNA)
A Community needs assessment (CSA) is undertaken to identify the needs of the community
(Altschuld, James, & Kumar, 2010) regarding the chosen public health issue by making use of
these four elements;
 Stakeholder analysis
The key stakeholders for the program are the school principals, teachers, the school-going
children, parents and Government and Private organisations. These stakeholders will be included
in the consultation to gain useful insight into the causes responsible for the problem and garner
support for the consequent program.
 Community profiling
The community profiling will help in establishing milestones, recognizing the knowledge and
research gaps, explaining the context and identifying the key stakeholders (Jiao, Han, & Ye,
2017).

 Internal analysis
The internal analysis will involve conduction of SWOT analysis.
 Community consultation
Community consultation will determine the distinctive requirements of the stakeholder groups
through community meetings.
These four elements will inform the community and encourage their participation in collecting
data and developing the program plan.
Program based on prioritized need
The prevalence of obesity among school going children is influenced by several socioeconomic,
geographical, environmental and social factors. A range of issues were identified on conduction
of community needs assessment which are as follows:
 Lack of strict policies from Government on reduction and prevention of childhood
obesity
 Poor school structure
 Lack of parental guidance and supervision
 High availability of unhealthy foods
 Lack of awareness
The issues which were identified through CNA are prioritised. For effective prioritization of
issues, analysis was done against 5 criteria. The criteria are cost-benefit ratio, benefit, feasibility,
timeliness and percentage of population influenced. The five identified issues are scored out of 5
and the top issues impacting the prevalence of obesity were identified.
The top three prioritized issues are:
 Lack of strict policies from Government on reduction and prevention of childhood
obesity,
 Lack of awareness
 Poor school structure

Overarching goal of the program
The goal of the program is to reduce the intake of high calorific value food by 40% in school
going children between 5 and 17 years in Australia within 3 years.
Program Objectives
Objective 1
To draft and authorise suitable plans and policies at different levels.
Objective 2
To raise awareness about the criteria, causes and symptoms of obesity along with its
complications in various regions.
Objective 3
To regulate the school system for obesity management by taking multiple measures
Program Strategies
Plan will include specific actions for each objective which will be based on certain aspects of
planning, implementing and managing changes. Strategies are developed for every objective
which are based on following aspects:
 Accommodating environment
 Reinforcing policy
 Community action
 Individual abilities
 Health Services

Program strategies to achieve objective 1
Objective 1- To draft and authorise suitable plans and policies at different levels.
Actions that will be taken to accomplish it
 Subsidizing schemes
 Zoning out
 Promotion limitation
 Guidelines over food labelling
Program strategies to achieve objective 2
Objective 2- To raise awareness about the criteria, causes and symptoms of obesity along with its
complications in various regions.
Actions that will be taken to accomplish it
 Social media campaigns
Program strategies to achieve objective 3
Objective 3- To regulate the school system for obesity management by taking multiple measures
Actions that will be taken to accomplish it
 Professional development training
 Revision of school canteen policies
 Distribution of school newsletter
 School curriculum modification
Potential challenges to the proposed program
 Multicultural society may lead to ethnic challenges

 Disapproval from the community
 Receiving and sustaining long-term funding
 Uncertainty in the Government plans can also be a barrier in the effective
implementation of the program. As it may result in inefficient community
participation and decreased acceptance of the planned strategies.
 Failure to attract the target group of young adults
Ways to address the challenges
Challenges and barriers to the effective implementation can be addressed by taking following
measure:
 Effective planning
 Inclusion of all the ethnic groups in consultation meetings and decision-making
 Data collection through surveys
 Consultation meetings
 Social media campaigns
 Review meetings
Financial, Physical and Human resources required
The planning as well as implementing phase will require financial, physical and human resources
for its successful implementation. Capital and human resources will be required for:
 Data collection
 Undertaking the social media campaigns
 Planning and conducting training programs
 Distributing school newsletters
 Drafting and revising the policies
 Evaluation of the actions taken to implement the program

Conclusion
The program plan is an action oriented, community-engaging plan which will lead to
development of a sound and result oriented program that will efficiently address the identified
and prioritized challenges related to the prevalence of obesity among the school-going children
of Australia.
References
Altschuld, James, & Kumar, D. D. (2010). Needs Assessment:An Overview. Sage.
aph.gov.au. (2018). Overweight and Obesity in Australia. Parliament of Australia.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2017). A Picture of Overweight and Obesity in
Australia 2017. Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
Jiao, Han, & Ye. (2017). Functional association prediction by community profiling. Methods,
129, 8-17.
Müller, Braun, Enderle, & Bosy-Westphal. (2016). Beyond BMI: conceptual issues related to
overweight and obese patients. Obes Facts, 9, 193-205.
Müller, M. J., & Geisler, C. (2017). Defining obesity as a disease. European Journal of Clinical
Nutrition, 71, 1256-1258.
Sharma, & Scherer, C. (2017). Redefining obesity: beyond the numbers. Obesity, 25, 65–66.
World Health Organisation. (2017). Obesity and Overweight. Geneva: WHO.