Community Action Plan: Morbid Obesity in Adults - Lifespan Care

This assignment presents a community action plan addressing morbid obesity in adults, defining the condition, providing background information, and highlighting the need for intervention due to its increasing prevalence and associated health risks such as diabetes, hypertension, and mental health issues. It includes statistical data demonstrating the rising rates of obesity in Australia and outlines long-term goals, objectives, and indicators for success, focusing on changing health behaviors, addressing social determinants, and improving access to healthcare. The plan utilizes the Ottawa Charter framework, emphasizing creating supportive environments, strengthening community action, building public health policies, and reorienting healthcare services. The community action plan aims to reduce the disease burden, enhance the quality of life, and promote healthier lifestyles through comprehensive and collaborative strategies.

Running head: MORBID OBESITY – COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN
MORBID OBESITY – COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1
MORBID OBESITY – COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN
Definition of assigned chronic disease condition:
Morbid obesity can be defined as the serious health condition that can interfere with the
different physical functions like breathing as well as walking. Individuals who are found be
morbidly obese remain at the greater risk for illness like that of diabetes, high blood pressure ,
sleep apnea, gastroesophagal reflux like GERD, gallstones, osteoarthritis, cancer as well as heart
disorders.
Morbid obesity can be diagnosed by the determination of Body Mass index. BMI can be
defined as the ratio of the individual’s height to the weight. Normal BMI of the individuals is
mainly seen to range from 20 to 25. When the individuals are seen to have BMI over 25 to 30,
the individuals would be overweight and when beyond 30, the individual would be considered
obese (Leslie et al. 2015). When the individuals are above BMI 35, they are considered to be
suffering from morbid obesity. Morbid obesity is considered a medical condition where patients
are seen to have excess amount of body fat and a body mass index of above 35.
Obesity not only acts as the risk factors for other chronic disorder but also affects the
mental and emotional health and well-being as well. Obese individuals are seen to suffer from
depression, anxiety as well as social exclusion. Suicides are also seen to be positively correlated
with such disorder. Therefore, obesity has become the sole factor of the occurrences of many
chronic disorders along with poor mental health conditions and self-harm tendencies. Often
people suffering from co-morbid disorders are seen to live poor quality life and their sufferings
increase day by day (Lubans et al. 2016). Hence, obesity has become one of the most important
health concerns in the nation as it has become one of the greatest contributors to diseases burden
in the nation. Therefore, preventative strategies need to be adopted by every community to

2
MORBID OBESITY – COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN
ensure that the community members are safe from the risks of the disorder and lead better quality
lives.
Background information and need for the project:
With the increasing disease burden of obesity in the nation of Australia, it had become a
health concern and needs to be handled with urgency. Obesity is increasing the disease burden in
the nation by various ways. People who are seen to suffer from obesity are often seen to become
resistant to insulin action, which is important for maintenance of the sugar level in the blood.
Therefore, they are seen to have high blood sugar and this increases the risk for developing
Type-2 diabetes. Moreover, obesity is also seen to increase the blood pressure of affected
individuals. Hypertension thereby occurs in the patients that in turn leads to development of
severe situations where patients get affected by strokes and damages their heart and kidney
(Bolton et al. 2017). Another important chronic disorder that obesity often results in affected
individuals is osteoarthritis of the weight bearing joints. Additional weights are seen to be placed
on the joints especially on the knees and the hips that cause rapid wearing and tearing of the
joints along with pain and inflammation. Decreased mobility is also seen to be associated as it
also contributes to the disk proems, and pain.
Excessive weight gain in the tongue and neck can result in blocking of the air passages
for people who sleep on their backs. This makes them lose their sleep and make them suffer from
sleep apnea and respiratory issues. Gastroesophagal reflux disease is also seen to occur with
hiatel hernia and heartburn (Maatuog et al. 2015). Excess gaining of the weight causes
overloading and weakening of the valve present at the top of the stomach allowing stomach acid
to ensure the esophagus. This situation is called the gastroesophagal reflux and heartburn and

3
MORBID OBESITY – COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN
acid indigestion is seen to occur. Depression is also seen to occur as people who suffer who are
seen to be obese need to deal with constant as well as depressing emotional challenges. Failed
diets, disapproval from families and friends, remarks from strangers are seen to be some of the
contributing factors for developing depression (Lobstein et al. 2015). Infertility is also seen to
occur as obesity disrupts the normal actions and functioning of the male and female hormones
resulting in difficulty or inability to conceive. Urinary stress incontinence also results. When
abdomen is seen to become large and heavy, it causes relaxation of the pelvic muscles along with
compounding of the effects of the childbirth. This causes weakening of the valves of the urinary
bladder causing leakage of urine when coughed sneezed or laughed.
This above mentioned health issues can reflect the need of the project that would help in
preventing the occurrence of the disorder. Researchers are of the opinion that illnesses associated
with obesity have significant impact on the Australian economy. Reports state that direct
financial costs to the healthcare system include higher healthcare cost along with higher demands
of the healthcare services. Such healthcare services are seen to include general practitioners,
allied healthcare professionals, specialists, pharmaceuticals, administrations and other healthcare
direct costs (Lacy et al. 2015). The different types of the indirect costs are seen to include
productivity losses, carer costs, welfare payments and forgone taxations revenues. The different
other costs associated with the disease burden are healthcare aids, equipment transports,
accommodations, respites and other governmental programs. Huge amount of expenditure of
healthcare resources on treatments and surgeries are also high. Therefore, in order to reduce the
diseases burden and develop the GDP and quality of life of people in the nation, the project is
important.

4
MORBID OBESITY – COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN
Statistics:
In the year 2014 to 2015, data obtained showed that two third of the Australians that
accounts for about 63% of the population aged 18 years and over were found to be overweight or
obese. En were seen to be having higher rates of obesity and overweight accounting to about
71% in comparison to that of women who accounted for about 56%. In the same year, studies
have shown that 18% off the adults were classified as class 1 obese, 6% as class 2 obese and 3%
as class 3 obese (Pettman et al. 2015). If the trends of obesity prevalence are analyzed closely, it
can be seen that there is an increasing graph of the disorder in the nation. Prevalence f
overweight and obesity was seen to be 57% in the year 1995 that increases in the year 20117-
2008 to 61%. This increased to 655 in the year 2014-2015. Hence, it can be expected that the
prevalence will tend to grow and unless proper interventions are applied, the situation will
become more strenuous. About 1 in every 4 children in the nation in 2014-2015 accounting for
about 27% of the children are food to be overweight and obese. The rate was 21% in 1995 but
the present percentage in 2014-2015 is 25% among the children. Therefore, it is high time to
look into the matter in a priority basis (Brownell and Walsh 2017).
Goals and objectives:
Long-term Impact or outcome:
 Changing the health behaviors of the individuals towards safer and fitter lifestyles
 Addressing the social determinants of health that lead to selection off poor choices of diet
 Arrangement of health screening systems and primary healthcare services and evidence
based care services from healthcare professionals.

5
MORBID OBESITY – COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN
 Development of community based interventions making the community a safe place to
live
Long-term outcome indicator:
 Waist circumference of the individuals
 Basal metabolic index of the individuals
 Less reporting of obesity as risk factors for chronic disorders among patients
 Buying of healthier foods and decreased buying of fast foods
 More awareness among the community members and development of health literacy
Theory or Framework:
Health promotion can be described as the process of enabling people in way by which
they can increase control over and thereby improve their health. The healthcare promoters and
the concerned authorities would follow the Ottawa charter framework. Each of the domain of the
healthcare needs and requirements of the affected individuals and the social determinants of
health enhancing the disorder should be addressed with this disorder (Whelan et al. 2018).
 Creating supportive environment:
This action area mainly ponders over the natural as well as the build in environments and
includes the conservation of the natural resources. The project would initiate strategies by
which the children in the schools communities should be taught about the importance of
healthy weight and concept of obesity by including a specific chapter in their academics.
The working environment of the organizations is very strenuous which forces individuals
to adopt sedentary lifestyles. The organizations should be advised to include gymnasiums
in their workplaces, lessen the work burden of the employees, and incorporate spot

6
MORBID OBESITY – COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN
activities in the weekends and many others. The canteens in the schools and the offices
should change their menus to healthy food options and should stop selling fast foods and
others (Wang et al. 2018). Fields and parks should be developed in every community so
that members can take physical exercises here. Moreover, health promotion programs
should be arranged in the offices, schools and community halls in the communities where
they can educate people and arrange for screening sessions. All these would help in
development and creating a supportive environment that would promote health
development towards a fitter life (Bleich et al. 2017).
 Strengthening of the community action:
This action area would include the strategies for community development. It mainly
draws on the existing human and material resources. This would help in the enhancement
as well as social support and develop flexible systems for strengthening community
participation. This would be only possible when the various kinds of social determinants
of health would be addressed in such a way by the different improper health behaviors
can be altered (Smith et al. 2014). The project would attend the social determinants of
health and develop interventions to address them. Often the people who are unemployed,
have low social income, belong to low socioeconomic classes cannot get access to high
quality food; they buy cheap calorie dense foods that result in weight gain. Hence,
interventions for making nutritious food available in the community markets should be
ensured and this foods needs to be cheaper so that those cohorts can buy them. Low
education is yet another determinant that leads to improper health behaviors like
sedentary lifestyles, increased intake of calorie-dense foods and many others. Therefore,
schools, colleges, employment centers and many others should conduct education and

7
MORBID OBESITY – COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN
health promotion sessions to help them develop change their behaviors towards fitter
lives.
 Building of the health public policies:
This would be including health promotion policy, which will combine with diverse but
complementary approaches. This would include legislation, fiscal matters, taxations and
organization changes. The project would incorporate eminent policy makers who would
develop the public policy on the disorder (Roberto et al. 2015). This will discuss the
different important strategies that the various organizations like healthcare organizations
schools, governmental and non-governmental sectors, and the legal system of the nation,
the taxation departments and many others would come together and collaboratively
develop interventions (Langford et al. 2015). Laws and regulations, tax and price
interventions, Community-based interventions, health promotions and others are to be
discussed in the health public policy.
 Reorientation of the healthcare services:
This action area would be including development of the role of the health sector beyond
the responsibility of the providing clinical as well as curative services. Reorientation of
the health services would require stronger attention to health research as well as
professional education and training. The healthcare professionals need to develop
screening programs in the community healthcare centers of the vulnerable individuals
and accordingly educate them about the necessity of the change of their health behaviors.
It is important for the project to allocate funds for the healthcare professionals to educate
them about ways to develop health literacy of patients. More funds would be allocated for

8
MORBID OBESITY – COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN
helping the professionals undertake more researches and come out with interventions that
help in development of health of individuals (Daniels et al. 2015). Cognitive behavioral
therapy, family centered care and other psychological therapies would be helpful in
managing mental disorders arising from the disorder. Nurses need to be empathetic and
compassionate for providing client based education.
Implementation plan with timeline:
 Proper statistical analysis of the prevalence of obesity in the nation would be done
 In-depth research of the impact of obesity on the mental, physical and emotional health
of individuals and their economic impact on healthcare and GDP of the nation would be
done and report would be prepared
 Effective advocacy of the strategies developed and would be discussed with the other
governmental and nongovernmental organizations who are included in the collaborate
output (Kozica et al. 2016)
 Resource allocation plan should be developed and accordingly resources would be
disused ad distributed among the stakeholders for the initiation of the actions
 Screening programs implementation, development of policy and publication, health
promotion programs in the community, schools and offices, cognitive behavioral
sessions, training of healthcare sectors, allocation of resources to all and many others
would be implemented accordingly
 The monitoring bodies would then carry on evaluation programs accordingly.

9
MORBID OBESITY – COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN
Timeline: (Prepared by author)
Gant chart: (Prepared by author)

10
MORBID OBESITY – COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN
References:
Bleich, S.N., Vercammen, K.A., Zatz, L.Y., Frelier, J.M., Ebbeling, C.B. and Peeters, A., 2017.
Interventions to prevent global childhood overweight and obesity: a systematic review. The
Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.
Bolton, K.A., Kremer, P., Gibbs, L., Waters, E., Swinburn, B. and de Silva, A., 2017. The
outcomes of health-promoting communities: being active eating well initiative—a community-
based obesity prevention intervention in Victoria, Australia. International Journal of
Obesity, 41(7), p.1080.
Brownell, K.D. and Walsh, B.T. eds., 2017. Eating disorders and obesity: A comprehensive
handbook. Guilford Publications.
Daniels, L.A., Mallan, K.M., Nicholson, J.M., Thorpe, K., Nambiar, S., Mauch, C.E. and
Magarey, A., 2015. An early feeding practices intervention for obesity prevention. Pediatrics,
pp.peds-2014.
Kozica, S.L., Teede, H.J., Harrison, C.L., Klein, R. and Lombard, C.B., 2016. Optimizing Implementation of
Obesity Prevention Programs: A Qualitative Investigation Within a Large‐Scale Randomized Controlled Trial. The
Journal of Rural Health, 32(1), pp.72-81.
Lacy, K.E., Nichols, M.S., de Silva, A.M., Allender, S.E., Swinburn, B.A., Leslie, E.R., Jones,
L.V. and Kremer, P.J., 2015. Critical design features for establishing a childhood obesity
monitoring program in Australia. Australian journal of primary health, 21(4), pp.369-372.

11
MORBID OBESITY – COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN
Langford, R., Bonell, C., Jones, H. and Campbell, R., 2015. Obesity prevention and the Health
promoting Schools framework: essential components and barriers to success. International
Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 12(1), p.15.
Leslie, E., Magarey, A., Olds, T., Ratcliffe, J., Jones, M. and Cobiac, L., 2015. Community-
based obesity prevention in Australia: background, methods and recruitment outcomes for the
evaluation of the effectiveness of OPAL (Obesity Prevention and Lifestyle). Advances in
Pediatric Research, 2(3), pp.1-16.
Lobstein, T., Jackson-Leach, R., Moodie, M.L., Hall, K.D., Gortmaker, S.L., Swinburn, B.A.,
James, W.P.T., Wang, Y. and McPherson, K., 2015. Child and adolescent obesity: part of a
bigger picture. The Lancet, 385(9986), pp.2510-2520.
Lubans, D.R., Smith, J.J., Plotnikoff, R.C., Dally, K.A., Okely, A.D., Salmon, J. and Morgan,
P.J., 2016. Assessing the sustained impact of a school-based obesity prevention program for
adolescent boys: the ATLAS cluster randomized controlled trial. International Journal of
Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 13(1), p.92.
Maatoug, J., Msakni, Z., Zammit, N., Bhiri, S., Harrabi, I., Boughammoura, L., Slama, S., Larbi,
C. and Ghannem, H., 2015. Peer Reviewed: School-Based Intervention as a Component of a
Comprehensive Community Program for Overweight and Obesity Prevention, Sousse, Tunisia,
2009–2014. Preventing chronic disease, 12.
Pettman, T., Bolton, K., Love, P., Waters, E., Gill, T., Whelan, J., Boylan, S., Armstrong, R.,
Coveney, J., Booth, S. and Swinburn, B., 2015. A snapshot of the scope of obesity prevention
practice in Australia. Health promotion international, 31(3), pp.582-594.

12
MORBID OBESITY – COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN
Roberto, C.A., Swinburn, B., Hawkes, C., Huang, T.T., Costa, S.A., Ashe, M., Zwicker, L.,
Cawley, J.H. and Brownell, K.D., 2015. Patchy progress on obesity prevention: emerging
examples, entrenched barriers, and new thinking. The Lancet, 385(9985), pp.2400-2409.
Smith, J.J., Morgan, P.J., Plotnikoff, R.C., Dally, K.A., Salmon, J., Okely, A.D., Finn, T.L. and
Lubans, D.R., 2014. Smart-phone obesity prevention trial for adolescent boys in low-income
communities: the ATLAS RCT. Pediatrics, pp.peds-2014.
Wang, Y., Cai, L., Wu, Y., Wilson, R.F., Weston, C., Fawole, O., Bleich, S.N., Cheskin, L.J., Showell, N.N., Lau,
B.D. and Chiu, D.T., 2015. What childhood obesity prevention programmes work? A systematic review and meta‐
analysis. Obesity reviews, 16(7), pp.547-565.
Whelan, J., Love, P., Millar, L., Allender, S. and Bell, C., 2018. Sustaining obesity prevention in
communities: a systematic narrative synthesis review. Obesity Reviews, 19(6), pp.839-851.