Impact of Education and Income on Obesity in New Zealand Health

This essay examines the critical health issue of obesity in New Zealand, focusing on the influence of education and income as key social determinants. It explores how these factors impact individuals, groups, and communities, highlighting the relationship between education, income, and obesity prevalence. The essay further details the current measures implemented by New Zealand to address obesity, including educational programs and fiscal policies. The analysis considers how these interventions aim to improve health outcomes by addressing the social and environmental factors that contribute to the problem. The essay draws on various sources to provide a comprehensive overview of the issue and the strategies employed to combat it.

Running head: HEALTH IN NEW ZEALAND 1
Health in New Zealand
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

HEALTH IN NEW ZEALAND 2
Introduction Obesity is a medical situation where excess body fat has accumulated to the
extent that it may hurt health. In New Zealand, obesity has become an essential national health
concern in recent years with high figures of individuals afflicted in each ethnic and age group.
The rate of adult obesity elevated from 27 per cent in 2006/2007 to 32 per cent in 2017/2018
while that of children escalated from 8 per cent to 12 per cent in the same period. Social
/environmental determinants of health such as education and finances significantly influence
obesity on people of New Zealand. The essay will address the impacts of income and education
on health, how education and income are linked to obesity and the measures New Zealand has
implemented to tackle obesity.
Explain how these social/environmental determinants affect individuals, groups, and
communities in New Zealand
Education is a process of enhancing learning or the acquisition of skills, knowledge,
values, habits, and abilities (Biesta, 2015). Education is an essential method of facilitating an
individual's health and well-being since it minimizes the need for healthcare, the affiliated costs
of dependence, and lost salaries along with human suffering. Also, it helps in fostering and
encouraging healthy lifestyles and productive choices, upholding and fostering human
development, social relationships along with individual, family and neighborhood health.
However, education elevates intake of preventive care that may result in long-run
investments but short-term inflates in health care costs. People with more education are more
probable to make use of health care provision. Furthermore, the education association and few
forms of illicit use of drugs and occasionally use of alcohol are found to be positive.
Since Pacific people have worse economic circumstances than the whole population with
most of them living in regions with the fewest financial resources they are at risk of lower

HEALTH IN NEW ZEALAND 3
education hence poor health outcomes. Pacific people tend to have poorer education results
compared to other people from the same communities due to lower levels of participation in
early childhood education (Marriott. & Sim, 2015). Education is vital to New Zealanders as it
will enable them to acquire knowledge and skills on how to avoid specific health problems and
the best healthy foods to keep their bodies fit.
Income is money received by a person in exchange for offering services via investing
capital. Income has an impact on the health of individuals, groups, and communities in New
Zealand. In New Zealand, a connection amidst family income and mortality is firm. Higher
income is associated with better health since people can always access anything they desire or
want like visiting doctors for consultation about their health (Adler, Glymour & Fielding, 2016).
On the other hand, individuals with lower incomes usually have less money to spend taking care
of themselves or even accessing treatment in case they are sick. Furthermore, stress associated
with low income more so during childhood increases the risk of getting some diseases.
Most frequently decreased family income result in poorer health but also family wealth
and income are frequently decreased after a family member gets sick. Whilst the income gradient
is over all the groups in the New Zealand community, few populations are unequally delineated
in low-income groups like Maori and Pacific households, single families and households on
health benefits.
Lower-income lead to people living in low-income communities which are often
economically marginalized and segregated and have more risk determinants for poor health
(Jachimowicz, Chafik, Munrat, Prabhu & Weber, 2017). These communities or neighbourhoods
have less access to supermarkets for healthy food and an oversupply of fast food restaurants that

HEALTH IN NEW ZEALAND 4
offer unhealthy foods. New Zealand men on a low income have twice the peril of untimely death
than men on inflated salaries. Income is relevant to people of New Zealand as it gives them the
opportunity to acquire the best medical health services and the best lifestyles.
Identify a health issue in New Zealand which links to these two social/environmental
determinants and describe the relationship.
Obesity is a health issue in New Zealand which affects a large population (Crino, Sacks,
Vandevijvere, Swinburn & Neal, 2015). Education is linked to obesity, and people who are at
risk are adults. High level of education is related to low cases of obesity (El-Behadli, Sharp,
Hughes, Obasi & Nicklas, 2015). For instance, people who have spent many years in school are
less likely to drink too much alcohol, smoke, to be overweight or even use illegal drugs.
In like manner, the better-educated individuals are more probable to do exercises and
acquire preventive care like vaccines, colonoscopies, flu shots, pap smears along with
mammograms. Moreover, schooling increases an individual’s knowledge on the production
relations and hence elevating their capability to choose a healthy diet, avoiding unhealthy habits
and making efficient use medical care thus reducing the risk of becoming obese (Vaitkeviciute,
Ball & Harris, 2015).
Since education bestows people with better access to information and enhanced critical
thinking abilities, educated people make use of health-related information than uneducated
individuals. Low education level is linked to poor health, more stress and lower self-confidence
and less access to information on the energy content of food may promote the impacts of social
class on obesity. Lack of knowledge affects one's perception of their body mass resulting in
excess weight (Cederholm et al., 2015). The more educated people are more probable to select

HEALTH IN NEW ZEALAND 5
healthier styles of living. Consequently, highly educated individuals select healthier behaviours
compared to those who are highly enlightened about the ramification of those behaviours.
Higher income is linked to better health (Adler, Glymour & Fielding, 2016). As an
illustration, families with enough money can access healthy foods at any price and practice
healthy habits hence controlling their body weight. Also, they can afford places of exercises
which help their bodies not to accumulate a lot of fats. On the other hand, where income is low
there is a high possibility of children and adults becoming obese. For instance, in low-income
communities where supermarkets and places to play are scarce, consumption of low nutrition and
fast food along with little to no physical exercises lead to overweight. Low income is linked with
poverty and children are at risk of obesity by being exposed to any kind of food even when it is
not healthy just to fill their stomachs.
Describe the current measures in place which attempt to address the two determinants
linked to the health issue.
New Zealand has put some steps to reduce the rate of obese people. Introduction of food
and nutrition recommendations for the provision of healthy foods to children in schools and early
childhood education settings is one of the measures (Gerritsen, Wall & Morton, 2016). This
measure ensures that children and adolescents are well educated on proper nutrition to gain
knowledge on how to avert some diseases like obesity. It is also undertaking fiscal measures to
enhance nutrition like a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (Gerritsen, Wall & Morton, 2016).
Anti-obesity programs for children and also adults are implemented to make sure that the
health of individuals is improved since several cases of obesity have been reported. On
education, a program called Active Families has been put in place to provide education around
nutrition like portion sizing and food pyramid (Anderson, Taylor, Grant, Fulton & Hofman,

HEALTH IN NEW ZEALAND 6
2015). This program is designed for families held one night a week over three months, and it is
provided by Otara Health and held at the Otara Leisure Centre.
Moreover, the government started the Healthy Families NZ strategy that embraces the
concept of Whanau Ora based on principles of voluntary, community-led health promotion
through community-based workers (Theodore, McLean & TeMorenga, 2015). These workers
will assist families in making informed decisions about the health of their families. Healthy
Families NZ and Whanau Ora have the prospective to emphatically and substantially convert
Maori wellbeing and to enact research-informed arbitration like Ngati and Healthy (Hepi, Foote,
Finsterwalder, Carswell & Baker, 2017). Healthy Families NZ program concentrates on
educating individuals to make better decisions.
The Healthy Eating-Healthy Action (HEHA) is a strategy used to address concerns over
poor eating habits and lack of physical activities (Walton, 2016). Its framework acknowledges
the significance of minimizing health inequalities and the Treaty of Waitangi, a treaty signed in
1840 by Māori and the Crown (Theodore, McLean & TeMorenga, 2015). The strategy articulates
a vision of a society and an environment where families, communities, individuals, and whānau
are supported to live physically active lives, attain and keep healthy body weight and eat well.
This strategy helps low-income families together with the high-income families since they are
supported tom live healthy (Walton, 2016).
Conclusion
Obesity is a health issue in New Zealand, and it is influenced by the determinants
of health such as education and household finances or income. It is learned that high levels of
education lead to good health since the person has the knowledge and can access information on

HEALTH IN NEW ZEALAND 7
how to practice healthy eating habits which is not the case with the uneducated people who lack
the intelligence. In like manner, high-income individuals and communities have the resources to
acquire good services like the supermarkets where fresh goods are offered. To address the
obesity issue, New Zealand has put some measures such as Healthy Eating-Healthy Action
(HEHA) programme which support both the low-incomers and high-incomers. The other action
is the Healthy Families NZ strategy focuses on educating individuals to make better choices.
Finally, Active Families programme provides education on nutrition to families.

HEALTH IN NEW ZEALAND 8
References
Adler, N. E., Glymour, M. M., & Fielding, J. (2016). Addressing social determinants of health
and health inequalities. Jama, 316(16), 1641-1642.
Anderson, Y., Taylor, G., Grant, C., Fulton, R., & Hofman, P. (2015). The Green Prescription
Active Families programme in Taranaki, New Zealand 2007–2009: did it reach children
in need?. Journal of primary health care, 7(3), 192-197.
Biesta, G. (2015). What is education for? On good education, teacher judgment, and educational
professionalism. European Journal of Education, 50(1), 75-87.
Cederholm, T., Bosaeus, I., Barazzoni, R., Bauer, J., Van Gossum, A., Klek, S., & de van der
Schueren, M. A. E. (2015). Diagnostic criteria for malnutrition–an ESPEN consensus
statement. Clinical nutrition, 34(3), 335-340.
Crino, M., Sacks, G., Vandevijvere, S., Swinburn, B., & Neal, B. (2015). The influence on
population weight gain and obesity of the macronutrient composition and energy density
of the food supply. Current obesity reports, 4(1), 1-10.
El-Behadli, A. F., Sharp, C., Hughes, S. O., Obasi, E. M., & Nicklas, T. A. (2015). Maternal
depression, stress and feeding styles: towards a framework for theory and research in
child obesity. British journal of nutrition, 113(S1), S55-S71.
Gerritsen, S., Wall, C., & Morton, S. (2016). Child-care nutrition environments: results from a
survey of policy and practice in New Zealand early childhood education services. Public
health nutrition, 19(9), 1531-1542.

HEALTH IN NEW ZEALAND 9
Hepi, M., Foote, J., Finsterwalder, J., Carswell, S., & Baker, V. (2017). An integrative
transformative service framework to improve engagement in a social service ecosystem:
the case of He Waka Tapu. Journal of Services Marketing, 31(4/5), 423-437.
Jachimowicz, J. M., Chafik, S., Munrat, S., Prabhu, J. C., & Weber, E. U. (2017). Community
trust reduces myopic decisions of low-income individuals. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, 114(21), 5401-5406.
Marriott, L., & Sim, D. (2015). Indicators of inequality for Maori and Pacific people. Journal of
New Zealand Studies, (20), 24.
Theodore, R., McLean, R., & TeMorenga, L. (2015). Challenges to addressing obesity for Māori
in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Australian and New Zealand journal of public health, 39(6),
509-512.
Vaitkeviciute, R., Ball, L. E., & Harris, N. (2015). The relationship between food literacy and
dietary intake in adolescents: a systematic review. Public health nutrition, 18(4), 649-
658.
Walton, M. (2016). Setting the context for using complexity theory in evaluation: boundaries,
governance, and utilization. Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and
Practice, 12(1), 73-89.