Childhood Obesity and Becoming Influential: A Nursing Report

This report, titled "Becoming Influential," focuses on the critical issue of childhood obesity from a nursing perspective. The author, a nursing professional, identifies childhood obesity as a significant health concern, citing statistics from the World Health Organization and research indicating its prevalence. The report emphasizes the importance of public awareness regarding the causes of childhood obesity, such as poor eating habits and lack of physical activity, and proposes the theme that childhood obesity is preventable. The author outlines a plan to share this message through various methods, including organizing public events, utilizing social media, and sharing information with parents, teachers, and health institutions. The report also addresses potential challenges, such as resource limitations and communication barriers, and proposes strategies to overcome them. Furthermore, the author discusses the importance of negotiation skills, advocacy, and the role of nurses in healthcare media, concluding with a reflection on the learning experience and the importance of empowering others to create a safer society.

Running head: BECOMING INFLUENTIAL 1
Becoming Influential
Name
Institution

BECOMING INFLUENTIAL 2
Becoming Influential
Deciding On the Message
Childhood obesity is a serious medical condition which affects children and adolescents.
According to Sahoo et al. (2015), obesity in children has reached the epidemic levels as it highly
impacts both physical and psychological health of the children. I selected the issue on childhood
obesity because it’s the most common type of health issue which currently affects most children
worldwide and even in the country. Research conducted by World Health Organization (2018)
determined that in 2016, 41 million children under the age of 5 are obese and over 340 million
children and adolescents between the ages of 5-19 are obese. On the other hand, Rao, Kropac,
Do, Roberts and Jayaraman (2016) found out that almost 1 in every 7 children and adolescents in
Canada are obese. Since my nursing profession is pediatrician, I decided on this message because
it starts children on the path of health problems at a tender age. The public need to know more
about childhood obesity because in most cases, human factors like poor eating habits, lack of
physical activities are the main causes of childhood obesity. To ensure a healthy future
generation, it is important for the public to be informed so that the necessary measures may be
taken. The theme of my message is childhood obesity is preventable. This message is very
important because it will raise awareness on the essence of healthy eating habits and physical
activities. Since most people lack information, the message will ensure that it gives tips on how
to keep children from developing complications at an older age. After sharing this information, I
hope that it will help reduce stigmatization of children suffering from obesity. I also believe that
most people will take the necessary measures towards helping prevent childhood obesity.

BECOMING INFLUENTIAL 3
Deciding On How to Share My Message
To help raise awareness that will help increase the public understanding on childhood
obesity, I will use different methods to share my message so that it can have the most influence. I
will organize an event that will require involvement from the public. In this event, the public will
learn the healthy eating habits for healthy children as well as the essence of physical activities for
children. This event will be fun and social so as to enable the public to feel free to ask any
questions they may be having. I believe that whatever the public will learn from this event will
be useful for their lives and that of their children. I will also use social media to promote the
childhood obesity educational content. When choosing an appropriate target for my message, I
will consider different factors. For instance, my target audience will be parents with children or
who are hoping to have children as well as teachers. This is because they are the people who can
monitor if the children are actively exercising or not. Since this is a public health issue of
concern, I will share through a letter to the editor in my local newspaper. I will also target health
institutions and agencies because they have deeper understanding of the impacts of childhood
obesity and can therefore educate the public on the same. Since health agencies and institutions
are working on reversing the course of childhood obesity, the message will be taken more
seriously by the public than if it comes from a non-health agency or institution. The
considerations that would influence the format, timing and follow-up of my submission are the
tools and channels used, the set goals as well as the initial feedback received from the target
audience. There are several challenges that I am likely to face when passing my message. These
include lack of enough resources, ineffective communication and lack of cooperation from the
stakeholders. However, I plan on overcoming these challenges by mobilizing for a fund drive so
as to have enough resources, identifying the medium that will be used to pass every message and

BECOMING INFLUENTIAL 4
evaluate its effectiveness as well as have clearly stated objectives to help identify the willing
stakeholders. Negotiation is an essential part of advocacy. To help strengthen my bargaining
position by thoughtfully planning, I will require a different set of skills. These include capacity
building, organization, patience, communication, and problem-solving (Long et al., 2014). I
believe that these skills will enable me to discover my own value and power in the negotiation.
My message
From this assignment, I have learnt that a safe society is created when one person
identifies the problem and look for ways to eliminate it. To help realize the change we wish for,
we must empower one another and learn to believe in the same values so as to ensure the safety.
I have also learnt that when passing a message, it is essential to convince few people to view the
problem from your point of view before embarking on making the change. However, this
requires developing great and effective negotiation and advocacy skills (Sullivan, 2013).
Although the nursing profession has profound impact in the society, it is seldom mentioned in
the media discussions related to healthcare despite having advancement on patient care, policy
and business. According to Mason et al. (2018), nurses are invisible in health news media and
their citation is on at 4% in spite of their unique roles and expertise. This may be attributed to the
stereotypes of nurses. For instance, sometimes nurses are described as the eyes and ears of
physicians despite nurses being critical and analytical thinkers who solve problems. Also, the
fact that the nursing profession is dominated by females makes it hard to be recognized. Hoeve,
Jansen and Roodbol (2014) argue that the nurses are not recognized because they lack public
visibility. Therefore, as a nurse, I can be more influential by obtaining a stronger position in
healthcare and also using social media platforms to gain public image. This would give
journalists an idea of where to find nurses for interview (Jansen, & Roodbol, 2014). To ensure

BECOMING INFLUENTIAL 5
credibility and visibility of the nursing profession in future, I would claim the professional
authority, expertise and experience by proactively engaging with the media, working with
professional associations to create media content that informs people about the value and
knowledge of the nursing profession as well as making objections when comments that
undervalue the nursing practice are made.

BECOMING INFLUENTIAL 6
References
Jansen, G., & Roodbol, P. (2014). The nursing profession: public image, self-concept and
professional identity. A discussion paper. Journal of advanced nursing, 70(2), 295-309.
Long, T., Chaiyachati, K. H., Khan, A., Siddharthan, T., Meyer, E., & Brienza, R. (2014).
Expanding health policy and advocacy education for graduate trainees. Journal of
graduate medical education, 6(3), 547-550.
Mason, D. J., Nixon, L., Glickstein, B., Han, S., Westphaln, K., & Carter, L. (2018). The
Woodhull Study Revisited: Nurses' Representation in Health News Media 20 Years
Later. Journal of nursing scholarship : an official publication of Sigma Theta Tau
International Honor Society of Nursing, 50(6), 695–704. doi:10.1111/jnu.12429
Rao, D. P., Kropac, E., Do, M. T., Roberts, K. C., & Jayaraman, G. C. (2016). Childhood
overweight and obesity trends in Canada. Tendances en matière d'embonpoint et d'obésité
chez les enfants au Canada. Health promotion and chronic disease prevention in
Canada : research, policy and practice, 36(9), 194–198.
Sahoo, K., Sahoo, B., Choudhury, A. K., Sofi, N. Y., Kumar, R., & Bhadoria, A. S. (2015).
Childhood obesity: causes and consequences. Journal of family medicine and primary
care, 4(2), 187–192. doi:10.4103/2249-4863.154628
Sullivan, E. J. (2013). Becoming influential: A guide for nurses. Pearson Higher Ed.
World Health Organization. (2018). Obesity and overweight. Key fact. Retrieved from
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight

BECOMING INFLUENTIAL 7
Hoeve, Y. T., Jansen, G., & Roodbol, P. (2014). The nursing profession: public image, self‐
concept and professional identity. A discussion paper. Journal of Advanced
Nursing, 70(2), 295-309.