Prevention of Obesity among Teenage Youth in Middle or High School

This health promotion project plan aims towards reducing the obesity tendency among the teenage students in one of the middle or upper schools of Victoria.

Running head: PUBLIC HEALTH
Public Health
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Health Promotion Title
Prevention of Obesity among the teenage youth in middle or high school
Introduction
According to Strugnell et al. (2016), obesity among the teenagers who are in their
middle and the upper schools immediately and distally affects both the physiological and
psychological health. The stubbornly high prevalence of obesity throughout the world and
persistence of the childhood obesity into the later stages of the life, with overall increase in
the rate of mortality and morbidity highlights that it is a high time of develop effective
prevention and monitoring strategies in order to prevent childhood obesity. The following
public health promotion project plan aims towards reducing the obesity tendency among the
teenage students in the one of the middle or upper schools of Victoria. The health promotion
project plan will initiate with giving a brief outline about the target group. This will be
followed health promotion aims and prevention management perspective. At last the plan will
highlight the stakeholders of the plan, the health message along with activity description and
evaluation proposal.
Rational of the health promotion plan
Health Promotion and Target Group outline
According to the Victorian State Government, at least one out of the four teenage
children who are in their middle school or in their upper school age or either over-weight or
obese. In order words it can be said that at least 35 to 40% of the teenage children who are
between the age group of 10 to 16 years are over-weight or obese in Victoria, Australia. The
assessment of obesity is done based on the body mass index (BMI). Unlike adults where a

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single BMI can be used across all the age groups, the assessment of obesity for teenage
children with BMI mainly depends on age and current stage of growth. The report published
by the Victorian State Government as per the BMI index highlighted that over-weight equals
or is higher than 85th centile on BMI chart of the teenage and obese is equals or is greater
than 95th centile on the BMI chart. As per the Victorian Government Health Information
(2019), in schools like teenage children (10 to 16 years) in the Williamstown High School is
not meeting the daily physical activity recommendation and at the same time is feeding on
junk food or oily food, which is leading towards the development of the high BMI and
subsequent gain in uncontrolled weight.
Rational of the plan
According to Simmonds et al. (2016) the development of obesity during the early
stage of life is associated with several physiological complications. Llewellyn et al. (2016)
reported that the teenage children or the younger adults who are obese are more likely to
develop type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) during the later stages of their life. T2DM is a
chronic health conditions which has no cure and disrupts complete physiological and
psychological well-being. Moreover,, being over-weight or obese during early stages of life
increase the vulnerability of developing hypertension, arthrosclerosis, which eventually
transforms into complex cardiovascular disease after 30 years of age. Obese youths are also
likely to suffer from fatty liver disease and thereby hampering overall proper of digestion and
protein metabolism (Faienza et al., 2016). Rankin et al. (2016) reported that youths who are
over-weight suffers from poor self-esteem and negative body image that decreases their
social participation leading to isolation and development of depression. In some cases,
obesity in youths causes anorexia nervosa. Sahoo et al. (2015) also reported that obese youth
also suffer from attention deficient hyperactive disorder creating a gap in the academic

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performance. Thus it can be said that effective prevention of obesity from the teenage or
youths between the age group of 10 to 16 years will help to improve health related quality of
life. The Faienza et al. (2016) study highlighted that reduction in the obesity through effective
management of the diet plan and promotion of the physical activity among the teenage
children help in reducing the vulnerability of getting affected with cardiovascular problems
and T2DM by 50%. However, Faienza et al. (2016) reported that the healthy life style habits
must be maintained throughout in order to strike out the modifiable factors behind metabolic
disease development.
Health Promotion Aims
 Increase in the percentage of healthy (normal body weight) youth or teenage between
the age group of 10 to 16 years in Williamstown High School
 Increase in the mean number of the daily serves of vegetables and foods and decrease
in the intake of junk or oily food
 Increase in teenage participation of 30 minutes of daily physical activity exercise
Reduction in Junk food Intake
Specific (S) Reduction in junk food intake
Measurable (M) Reduction in total food intake during the recess hours
Achievable (A) Dividing the large meal in small subparts by nutritionist and making two
to three recess hours in school for small span of time
Realistic (R) Replacement of Junk food with fruits and vegetables in school canteen
menu chart
Timeline (T) 3 months
Promotion of physical activity
Specific (S) Physical activity to reduce body mass
Measurable (M) 30 minutes of physical activity

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Achievable (A) Physical activity will be conducted under trained physiotherapists and
will be done in groups like group based play
Realistic (R) Activities will be associated with rewards
Timeline (T) 3 months
Overall outcome Overall reduction in BMI and body weight
Table: SMART Goals
(Source: Fleming & Parker, 2015)
Health Promotion prevention management perspective (primary, secondary or tertiary)
According to Fleming and Parker (2015), under the Public Health Promotion
Management Perspectives, primary health promotion perspective aims to prevent disease or
injury before it occurrence. This is done by preventing exposure to the hazards leading to the
disease development. Secondary health promotion perspective aims to reduce the impact of
the disease that has already occurrence and this is done by detecting and subsequent treatment
of the disease in order to halt the negative prognosis of the disease. Tertiary health promotion
perspective aims to reduce the severity of any on-going illness that has long lasting effects.
This is executed by implementing long-term health promotion like rehabilitation program for
the stroke survivors.
In this public health promotion project plan, the aim is to reduce obesity in order to
reduce the vulnerability of developing complex physiological and psychological health
consequences. Llewellyn et al. (2016) stated that obesity is not a disease. However, it is a
health condition that increases the vulnerability of developing disease. So interventions given

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to overcome obesity like maintenance of healthy lifestyle habits will under the primary health
promotion perspective.
Stakeholders and community consultation
Two additional stakeholders that will be included in this project nutritionist and
physical fitness trainer. According to the regulation published by the World Health
Organisation (WHO) (2018) in order to reduce the BMI of young adults or teenage group, the
advice for maintaining healthy diet mainly include eating 400 grams of food at least five
times a day. This meal plan must be rich in fresh fruits and green vegetables. Mainly seasonal
fruits are given preference. The diet will be low in fat (less than 30% of the total energy
intake). The diet will also excluded saturated and unsaturated fats and industrially produced
trans-fat and replacement of the same with menus like steamed foods rather than fried food
and polysaturated fats like corn, soybean and rapeseed. The intake of salt (sodium and
potassium intake) must be strictly regulated along with reduction in the intake of free sugars
(less than 10% of total energy intake. Blanchette, Lemoyne & Trudeau (2019) stated that
dietary requirements vary with individuals along with age, gender, height and weight and
thus it is wise to take help from a professional nutritionist in order to make change in the diet
plan. Diet plan made by nutritionist will be rich in nutrition and at the same time will be tasty
to eat, encouraging students to follow the healthy diet routine.
According to Naylor et al. (2015), in order to increase the participation of the teenage
children in the school based physical activity sessions, the presence of a trainer physical
fitness trainer is indispensible. The role of the trainer will be to design creative yet engaging
group based physical activity sessions that indulge cardio exercises. The physical activities
must be designed in such a way that it promotes team bonding. Moreover the physical
activity must end with exciting rewards. Scraton (2017) stated that designing physical activity

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session under the controlled supervision of the physical fitness trainer in school helps to
increase the participation of the teenage schoolchildren.
According to WHO (2017) community consultation and engagement is central part of
any public health intervention. Community consultation involves those affected (in case the
obese or over-weight school children) and understanding the risks they face and also
involving them in response actions that are acceptable. The community consultation and
subsequent engagement of the community in this health promotion plan will include
consultation of the main stakeholders of this health promotion, the students. The students will
be consulted in order to know the reason they feel about themselves for being over-weight
and whether or not they want to take any initiatives to overcome such physical state. This will
lead to further community development by implementation of behaviour change commination
and health education. Proper health education will help to increase health awareness thereby
helping to promoting comprehensive health outcome in weight management (WHO, 2017).
In the community consultation, the guardians and the teachers will also be invited so that the
students do not feel isolated and awareness is generated in every part of the society.
Health Message/Logo
Stay fit, look good and think positive
Health Promotion Activity Description
Diet Planning
The menu served at the school canteen will be revamped completely. The oily or junk
food like burgers, noodles and aerated drinks will be replaced by fruit juices, green vegetable
salads, cereals and whole grains. This will be done under the controlled supervision of a
professional nutritionist. This will help to bring change in the feeding habits of the children.

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The one hour of recess time within a day will be broken into two slots (30 minutes each).
This will help to break the large meal into two small parts. Such change in the food habits
will help to reduce the calories intake among the students and thereby helping to reduce BMI
(World Health Organisation, 2018).
Physical activity planning
After the end of school there will be a 30 minutes physical activity session. There will
be group-based sports in boys like rugby, cricket, and football and in monsoon there will be
indoor activities like badminton, table tennis and volley ball. Students will be divided into
groups and there will be inter-call competition. Use of playful activities rather than normal
free hand exercise training will help to fetch more attention and participation from the
students (Naylor et al., 2015).Obese girls are or girls are not always comfortable in taking
active participation in sports, for girls there will be arrangements for zumba classes or ballet
dancing. This will help to increase their level of participation and at the same time, improving
the health outcome (Scraton, 2017). Every month end there will be an educational program
after the class where the students will be educated about the importance of staying fit by
managing body weight.
Health Promotion Evaluation Proposal
The evaluation of the health promotion proposal will be done by measuring the
weight and BMI index of the obese children in Williamstown High School, Victoria.
Comparison will be done with the baseline data and with the data after 3 months of the
participation in the health promotion plan. After the end of the trail session of the health
promotion plan, the participants will be interviews in order to access the level of knowledge
of the students in obesity management and health-threats with high BMI. Increase awareness
level will ensure the success of the health promotion plan.

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Conclusion
Thus from the above discussion, it can be concluded that in order to manage the
escalating weight of the school children at the community level two primary health
promotion strategy will include proper maintenance of health diet and regular practice of the
physical activity. But the diet plan and physical activity session must be designed with a
creative approach in order to fetch improved outcome. This will be followed by health
education in order to generate health awareness.

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References
Blanchette, S., Lemoyne, J., & Trudeau, F. (2019). Tackling Childhood Overweight: Parental
Perceptions of Stakeholders’ Roles in a Community-Based Intervention. Global
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Faienza, M. F., Wang, D. Q., Frühbeck, G., Garruti, G., & Portincasa, P. (2016). The
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syndrome. Internal and emergency medicine, 11(2), 175-182.
Fleming, M. L., & Parker, E. (2015). Introduction to Public Health eBook. Elsevier Health
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