Obesity Prevention Among Indigenous Children

This document discusses the issue of obesity among children in Australia, particularly in the indigenous community. It highlights the higher rate of obesity among indigenous children aged 5 to 11 and the associated health risks. The document proposes a healthcare promotional program targeting these children to provide effective interventions and raise awareness about healthy habits and lifestyle choices. The program aims to prevent and control obesity in this vulnerable population.

Public Health Promotion Project
Due date:Week 8: Monday (midnight Darwin time)
Student Name:
Student Number:
OBESITY PREVENTION AMONG CHILDREN OF AGE 5 TO 11 OF INDIGENOUS
COMMUNITY
NUR329 S1 2019. Assignment 2.
Student Name:
Students Number: Page 1

Introduction
Obesity among children has become of the primary concerns of the healthcare
communities in Australia and as per the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2019), more
than 26% of the children of Australian community is suffering from obesity in
Australia. Further, the data indicated that majority of the weight loss surgeries
conducted in the last 10 years were associated with adolescent obesity as 22,700
adolescent patients undergone weight loss surgery in last 10 years. The rate of
obesity is not just affecting the adolescent group but also affecting the children of the
community as 1 in every 4 children is suffering from obesity in Australia (Australian
Bureau of Statistics, 2019). Besides the wide age group affected with obesity and
related adverse effects, children from 5 to 11 are vulnerable to this chronic health
condition as without proper support and lack of intervention for their obesity
condition, they could develop diabetes, and chronic heart conditions, that could
affect their bone strength and development (Mallan et al., 2014).
Besides this, it was seen in the data provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics
(2019) that the rate of childhood obesity is higher in indigenous community by 1.4%
than non-indigenous community. Due to this, the children of aboriginal community
are at higher risk of developing obesity and associated risk factors than any non
indigenous community in Australia (Anderson et al., 2016).
Hence, the primary aim of this paper would be to develop healthcare promotional
program targeting the 5 to 11 years aged children in Palmerston Primary School so
that they could be provided with effective intervention for their obesity control.
Besides this, this paper would discuss the health promotion prevention management
perspective so that the children of the chosen school could be provided with
effective interventions to control their risk of obesity, through health promotional
program.
Health Promotion and Target Group outline
While addressing the healthcare concerns of the community, it is important for any
healthcare promotional campaign developing organisation to understand the
strength, weakness, ability and ethical considerations that could affect the
community and their health outcome negatively and positively (Dyer et al., 2017). As
per Mihrshahi et al. (2017), while addressing the healthcare aim of the community, it
is important for the healthcare promotional organisation to understand the available
resources for the community and then provide them with intervention so that they
could overcome their risk of health complication. In this aspect, the target group
selected for this process are 5 to 11 year old indigenous community children of
NUR329 S1 2019. Assignment 2.
Student Name:
Students Number: Page 2

Palmerston Primary School and hence, it is important to assess the outline of this
community prior to implement this in the care process. in this aspect, the statistical
rates of Australian Bureau of Statistics (2019) should be discussed as per which
more than 30% of the aboriginal community children are at the verge of
develpop0ing obesity due to their overweight and hence, they are at the risk of
critical healthcare situations. Further, it was also mentioned that the rate of obesity
among primary school children could arise up to 65% by the nest 5 years and
hence, it determines an alarming situation for the health and wellbeing of an entire
community belonging to indigenous Australians (Ho, Garnett & Baur, 2014).
As per Roberts et al. (2019), besides critical health conditions, the risk of cancer due
to increased obesity is one of the critical and crucial situations that is affecting
majority of the world in this century. Besides these, children affected with obesity are
at the high risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, early deaths, and arthritis
and depression (Laws et al., 2014). Further, it was also mentioned in the
governmental reports that majority of the patients affected with obesity were low in
confidence, low in healthcare and self esteemed, hence it not only affected their
physical health, but also affects their emotional and mental Health conditions
(Mihrshahi et al., 2017).
Further, through extensive research of Sanders et al. (2015) it has been proven that
children with 5 to 11 years of age are associated with obesity due to their unhealthy
habits, their physical inactivity, their sedentary lifestyle and their improper diet and
food habits. It was seen that majority of the indigenous children with 5 to 11 years of
age are associated with junk foods, pizza and burger due to which they eating habit
disrupts. Further it was seen that due to the less cost of such food in the society,
they had direct reach to these food items and hence they were affected with such
food and diet habits (Dyer et al., 2017). Palmerston Primary School is one of the
educational institutes that have indigenous children affected with obesity in large
amounts and the number of such children within the age 5 to 11 is higher. Further it
was seen that more than 67% children are at the verge of developing critical
healthcare conditions and hence, this community was chosen as the target audience
for the healthcare promotional program for indigenous community.
Health Promotion Aims
The primary aim of this healthcare promotional program is to provide the indigenous
community and associated parents, whose children are studying in the Palmerston
Primary School with affecting awareness and health literacy so that with the
application of healthcare interventions, children could be provided with effective
interventions so that they could overcome their obesity condition (Welsby et al.,
NUR329 S1 2019. Assignment 2.
Student Name:
Students Number: Page 3

2014). As per Rekhy and McConchie (2014), obesity affected children are unable to
mix with other children and due to this, they lack confidence and they are unable to
express their feelings, hence, the primary aim would be developing confidence
among all the obese children of the Palmerston Primary School. This would help to
provide the children with physical activities, healthy eating, inferiority and lack of
confidence related interventions and as per Purtle and Roman (2014), application of
such intervention would help the children with decreased occurrence of the obesity
in the chosen community. Further as per Rekhy and McConchie (2014), providing
such intervention to the children and their parents would help them to develop
effective means of obesity preventive interventions that would eventually decrease
the prevalence if this disease in the indigenous children belonging to 5 to 11 years
age of Palmerston Primary School. Further, primary aim of this health promotional
program would be providing the parents of such children with the awareness of the
type of food, the type of activities, and lifestyle that could lead to severe obesity
condition among their children studying in the Palmerston Primary School (Welsby et
al., 2014).
The second aim would be providing the parents of such children, who belong to the
indigenous community and are affected with diabetes with healthcare knowledge so
that they could understand the risk factors associated with this condition such as
such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, sleep apnoea, and depression
(Mallan et al., 2014). Hence, the third and most important aim would be providing
the community and their children that are at the verge of developing obesity with
empowerment and support so that they could improve their lifestyle and develop
healthy habits and understand the benefit of healthy habits, physical activity among
developing children, for their mental, physical and emotional as well as cognitive
development (Welsby et al., 2014).
Therefore, the primary aim of the health promotional program would be developing
healthy habits in the children of indigenous community of Palmerston Primary
School so that their risk of obesity could be eliminated within 4 weeks of application
of the promotional program (Anderson et al., 2016).
Health Promotion prevention management perspective (primary, secondary or
tertiary)
As the healthcare promotional program is for the children with 5 to 11 years of age
of indigenous community belonging to Palmerston Primary School, this healthcare
program would be determined as the preventative healthcare endorsement
promotional campaign which as a primary aim of lowering the risk of diabetes
among the children (Mallan et al., 2014). As per Anderson et al. (2016), primary
healthcare promotional program is the type of healthcare program through which the
NUR329 S1 2019. Assignment 2.
Student Name:
Students Number: Page 4

healthcare promotional campaign organisers aim to decrease or lessen any disparity
or severe health outcome through the help of effective healthcare interventions.
Further, as per Ory et al. (2015), providing healthcare intervention with the
application of healthcare literacy is one of the critical processes using which a large
community could develop healthy habits. Hence, application of healthcare
promotional program in the Palmerston Primary School for the elimination of risk of 5
to 11 year old children should be developed as per the preventive health
management perspective so that elimination of risk related to type 2 diabetes,
cardiovascular disease and other critical health complications could be addressed
(Laws et al., 2014). Hence, this health promotional program would follow the primary
preventive healthcare management perspective for the growth and development of
the children affected with the risk of obesity.
Stakeholders and community consultation
As per the Lobo, Petrich and Burns (2014), stakeholders are the primary pillars for
any campaign or program as they are primarily associated with the direct or indirect
outcome of the promotional program. In this healthcare program, there will be
primary and secondary stakeholders and application of interventions should be
approved by these community members so that they could develop effective
improvement and achieve the primary aim of the program. As per Fertman and
Allensworth (2016), the primary stakeholders are target population, financers,
healthcare promotional program employees and the parents of the target children
with the risk of obesity. This healthcare campaign would be developed with the
associated of Australian governments indigenous department so that they could
provide maximum support to the health promotional program (Cooper, Bumbarger &
Moore, 2015). The secondary stakeholders of this healthcare promotional program
would be local committee members, local government officials, self volunteer and
NGO groups so that with the help of a multidimensional team effective intervention
could be developed and implemented in the promotional program directed for the
children of Palmerston Primary School (Cooper, Bumbarger & Moore, 2015).
Health Message/Logo
This is the proposed message that has been developed for the children and their
parents of the community in the Palmerston Primary School. This flyer involves the
aspects due to which obesity could be developed.
NUR329 S1 2019. Assignment 2.
Student Name:
Students Number: Page 5

Flyer developed and distributed to the parents of children who are at risk
Health Promotion Activity Description
The healthcare promotional program would be developed in a way so that the
children and their parents would be provided with effective interventions so that all
the obstacles present in the way of their active and healthy lifestyle could be
eliminated. In the first week, an interview session with the parents of the children of
indigenous community of Palmerston Primary School would be arranged and in this
aspect the area would be selected where a majority of the community could be
developed. This would raise their awareness and also would bring their focus to the
increasing risk of obesity among their children. Similarly, the project would use
different approaches to make the community members of the indigenous society and
parents of the affected children through posters and flyers, social media campaigns,
radio advertisements, stickers on public transport an areas, dailies articles, posting
placards around the high school and the community halls, and including high school
staff and employees in the healthcare promotional program to provide maximum
benefit to the target group. The commencement of the project would start with a
detailed meeting with all the stakeholders and especially the financers so that
required money could be collected. The meeting would be arranged in the
community hall of the school and a 10 minute PowerPoint presentation would be
NUR329 S1 2019. Assignment 2.
Student Name:
Students Number: Page 6

shown to all the staff so that they could understand the why this program would be
implemented for the benefit of the community.
Health Promotion Evaluation Proposal
While conducting the assessment of the healthcare promotional program for the
community and the target population, understanding the role of evaluation should be
spread to the employees and stakeholders of this campaign. As per Goetzel et al.
(2014), this would help to spread the awareness in all the members and they would
be able to observe minute advancement of the program on their own. Further, the
evaluation would involve registration of the community members and parents which
would directly determine the effectiveness of the program in spreading the
awareness (Dyer et al., 2017). Further, after completion of the program, each of the
parents would be interviewed about the changes they have implemented in their
child’s lifestyle, diet and activity regime so that influence of the program could be
assessed.
Conclusion
In this era, obesity has become one of the critical healthcare complication and the
crucial aspect of this could be seen among children who are developing critical and
severe healthcare complication in their primary age. This project helps the
participants that are on the risks of obesity and have critical risk on their health. The
developed campaign has mentioned that the risk factors related to childhood obesity
are preventable and reversible. Hence, this project aimed for the childhood obesity
among indigenous community and provided education to the parents so that they
could control their children’s physical activity, their diet their sedentary habits.
Therefore, all the aspects that have been mentioned in the project aimed to provide
maximum benefit to the target population and utilised minimum resources for the
effectiveness of this project.
NUR329 S1 2019. Assignment 2.
Student Name:
Students Number: Page 7

References
Anderson, I., Robson, B., Connolly, M., Al-Yaman, F., Bjertness, E., King, A., ... &
Pesantes, M. A. (2016). Indigenous and tribal peoples' health (The Lancet–
Lowitja Institute Global Collaboration): a population study. The
Lancet, 388(10040), 131-157. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-
6736(16)00345-7
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2019). ABS. 4364.0.55.001 - National Health
Survey: First Results, 2017-18 Retrieved from:
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4364.0.55.001
Cooper, B. R., Bumbarger, B. K., & Moore, J. E. (2015). Sustaining evidence-based
prevention programs: Correlates in a large-scale dissemination
initiative. Prevention Science, 16(1), 145-157. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-013-0427-1
Dyer, S. M., Gomersall, J. S., Smithers, L. G., Davy, C., Coleman, D. T., & Street, J.
M. (2017). Prevalence and characteristics of overweight and obesity in
indigenous Australian children: a systematic review. Critical reviews in food
science and nutrition, 57(7), 1365-1376. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2014.991816
Fertman, C. I., & Allensworth, D. D. (Eds.). (2016). Health promotion programs: from
theory to practice. John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved from:
https://books.google.co.in/books?
hl=en&lr=&id=gsE0DQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR18&dq=importance+of+stake
holder+in+health+promotion+program&ots=zinyWymdFL&sig=Ae6Mm0KcF1
2LfvwxKcbQwZTkU8U&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=importance%20of
%20stakeholder%20in%20health%20promotion%20program&f=false
Goetzel, R. Z., Henke, R. M., Tabrizi, M., Pelletier, K. R., Loeppke, R., Ballard, D.
W., ... & Serxner, S. (2014). Do workplace health promotion (wellness)
programs work?. Journal of Occupational and Environmental
Medicine, 56(9), 927-934. DOI: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000000276
NUR329 S1 2019. Assignment 2.
Student Name:
Students Number: Page 8

Ho, M., Garnett, S. P., & Baur, L. A. (2014). Childhood obesity and insulin
resistance: how should it be managed?. Current treatment options in
cardiovascular medicine, 16(12), 351. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11936-
014-0351-0
Laws, R., Campbell, K. J., Van Der Pligt, P., Russell, G., Ball, K., Lynch, J., ... &
Denney-Wilson, E. (2014). The impact of interventions to prevent obesity or
improve obesity related behaviours in children (0–5 years) from
socioeconomically disadvantaged and/or indigenous families: a systematic
review. BMC public health, 14(1), 779. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-
2458-14-779
Lobo, R., Petrich, M., & Burns, S. K. (2014). Supporting health promotion
practitioners to undertake evaluation for program development. BMC public
health, 14(1), 1315. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1315
Mallan, K. M., Nothard, M., Thorpe, K., Nicholson, J. M., Wilson, A., Scuffham, P. A.,
& Daniels, L. A. (2014). The role of fathers in child feeding: perceived
responsibility and predictors of participation. Child: Care, health and
development, 40(5), 715-722. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/cch.12088
Mihrshahi, S., Drayton, B. A., Bauman, A. E., & Hardy, L. L. (2017). Associations
between childhood overweight, obesity, abdominal obesity and obesogenic
behaviors and practices in Australian homes. BMC Public Health, 18, 1–10.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4595-y
Ory, M. G., Altpeter, M., Belza, B., Helduser, J., Zhang, C., & Smith, M. L. (2015).
Perceived utility of the RE-AIM framework for health promotion/disease
prevention initiatives for older adults: a case study from the US evidence-
based disease prevention initiative. Frontiers in public health, 2, 143. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2014.00143
Purtle, J., & Roman, L. A. (2015). Health awareness days: sufficient evidence to
support the craze?. American journal of public health, 105(6), 1061-1065.
DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2015.302621
Rekhy, R., & McConchie, R. (2014). Promoting consumption of fruit and vegetables
for better health. Have campaigns delivered on the goals?. Appetite, 79, 113-
123. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2014.04.012
NUR329 S1 2019. Assignment 2.
Student Name:
Students Number: Page 9

Roberts, N., Li, V., Atkinson, J., Heffernan, M., McDonnell, G., Prodan, A., …
Wiggers, J. (2019). Can the Target Set for Reducing Childhood Overweight
and Obesity Be Met? A System Dynamics Modelling Study in New South
Wales, Australia. Systems Research & Behavioral Science, 36(1), 36–52.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2555
Sanders, R. H., Han, A., Baker, J. S., & Cobley, S. (2015). Childhood obesity and its
physical and psychological co-morbidities: a systematic review of Australian
children and adolescents. European journal of pediatrics, 174(6), 715-746.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00431-015-2551-3
Welsby, D., Nguyen, B., O’Hara, B. J., Innes-Hughes, C., Bauman, A., & Hardy, L. L.
(2014). Process evaluation of an up-scaled community based child obesity
treatment program: NSW Go4Fun®. BMC Public Health, 14(1), 140. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-140
NUR329 S1 2019. Assignment 2.
Student Name:
Students Number: Page 10