Health Promotion Interventions: Evaluating Obesity Prevention

This report evaluates the Live Lighter campaign in Australia, focusing on its approach to obesity prevention. It examines the campaign's use of fear, risk, disgust, and personal responsibility, assessing its congruency with key determinants of health for the 21st century. The report considers the social determinants of health, comparing them with the campaign's interventions. It also analyses the campaign's promotion of health equity and environmental sustainability, and its broader social control measures. Ultimately, the report provides a comprehensive evaluation of the campaign's effectiveness and potential for improvement, offering insights into alternative models for health promotion.

Running head: HEALTH PROMOTION
Health promotion
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Executive Summary
Social campaigns have a determining role to play in creating responses to obesity. In this
report, a current obesity control campaign held in Australia have been evaluated. Particularly
the implication of fear, risk, disgust or stigma along with personal responsibility in
prevention of obesity have been considered in the course of the campaign. Broader
implications of such campaigns have been evaluated in this report. In this report, this
campaign have been evaluated against a standard of social control which portrays certain
body images along with problematizing body types other than that. The intended as well as
the unintended consequences of the campaigns have been considered and how the application
of alternative models might be helpful have been recommended.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction.......................................................................................................................................5
2. Determinants of Obesity and related HR interventions.....................................................................5
2.1 HR fame work followed by the Healthway (Western Australia)..................................................7
Eating healthier.............................................................................................................................8
Targeted Interventions..................................................................................................................9
2.2 Comparison of the HP interventions of the LiveLighter with the Social determinants of Health
(WHO)................................................................................................................................................9
The data on the rising risk of mental illnesses in Australia shows that mental health would prove to
be an alarming issue in the 21st century. A large number of the Australian people would suffer from
dementia. The list of social determinants of WHO also provides that stress factors causing Dementia
would be an alarming issue for the World. In people aged from 16 to 65. This might prove to be the
reason behind various disorders like mood swings, anxiety and so on. This leads people to crave for
more fast food (Knox et al. 2017). The Live Lighter campaign addresses this problem and includes
messages that might make people aware of the necessity to change their regular food habits.
Familied person must remember that such poor habits might result in illness that would incur
medical costs and future risks. Besides children growing up in these circumstances would not be able
to learn healthy food habits. The factor of social exclusion is also brought into the limelight in the
social determinants of the WHO, 2008. The same cause is being addressed in the Live Lighter with
the example of “Grabbable gut”. People with untoned body posture would lose social recognition.
The exponents of the campaign supposes that the illustrative representation of the internal organs
of the body containing toxic fat would give rise to fear and disgust in the minds of the Australians.
Another issue highlighted in the Social determinants of WHO is addiction (Lupton, 2013). Major
percentage of the Australian people are addicted to poor food habits. They prefer crispy fried snacks
and fast foods. In order to make the people aware of the disadvantages of these habits, the Live
Lighter campaign have included a series of television commercials. These would portray several
social circumstances and try to establish the importance of pertaining to good food habits. One of
the advertisements show a middle aged man advancing towards the refrigerator to take out a slice
of pizza. Midway he suddenly notice his “grabbable gut” and immediately looks at his children
playing in the lounge. He decides to leave his idea. He realises that if he falls ill owing to these odd
food habits, his children would have to suffer the consequences.........................................................9
3. Congruency with TWO of Kickbusch‘s (2012) five key determinants of health for 21st Century.....10
The epidemiological developments of the 21st century shows that overweight would be a common
trait of the people with about 57% of the overweight being obese (Martin, 2015). In such a state,
people are more prone to being attacked by various diseases of which diabetes is the most
threatening. Kickbusch also confirms that the people born in the 21st century would have lower
life expectancy rate in comparison to the previous generation members. The Live Lighter
campaign have addressed this issue and created illustrative television commercials for
encouraging social awareness.........................................................................................................10
3.1 The utilisation of Fear................................................................................................................11
3.2 Identification and discussion of systems thinking approaches (Stigma, Exclusion and Disgust) 12
3.3 Risk factors and Personal sense of responsibility.......................................................................13

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3.4 Assessment of if and how the HP intervention promotes health equity and/or Action on
environmental sustainability...........................................................................................................14
3.5 Widespread Control Measures..................................................................................................15
4. Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................16
Reference List......................................................................................................................................17

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1. Introduction
Obesity in Australia, is a huge health concern for the larger sections of the society. According
to the statistics gathered in Australia, about 65% of the population have been found ranging
between overweight to being obese. In this regard, this report analyses the various factors that
contribute weight gain or loss of weight. Excess energy imbalance is one of the main causes
of extra weight gain that results from individual behavioural disproportion. Other various
factors ranging from physiological and cultural to social as well as environmental contribute
to disproportions in weight along with the core factors like improper diet and physical
activities. Social control have been presented as an efficient tool which have the potential to
encourage social and cultural practices that can emphasize taking up healthy practices and
thus prevent obesity. The government of the civilians and inspection of their undertaking of
the control measures against obesity can be managed by various authorities. Among those,
public health interventions, which have a high potential in improving health of the individuals
offer a major contribution. Social control through the means of panopticon or synopticon is
useful for governing of health control measures to prevent obesity. Synopticon comprises of
the marketing campaigns that takes place by means of the media. Such marketing campaigns
also focus on drawing upon panoptic epidemiological information which have the capacity to
successfully frame public opinion that obesity should be controlled. In regard of the various
governing strategies and their impact, the Live Lighter campaign of Australia have been
interpreted in this report.
2. Determinants of Obesity and related HR interventions
About two third of the adults in Australia and every fourth children of the country are of
excess weight or suffering from obesity. As per Carter (2014), excess weight is the cause of
death of about 7000 individuals in Australia every year. Obesity is the causative agent of one

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in every five cases of heart attack, half of the fatalities cursed from diabetes, and most
importantly accounts for other alarming issues like reproductive complications as well as
sprain in the spinal cord.
Obesity among the Australians have an economic face also. On an average, Australians lose
$38 billion AUD each year, due to 4 million work days they lose owing to physical problems
arising out of obesity. Other factors being loss of money for incurring medical costs (about
1billion AUD) as well as economic losses that is caused due to premature death. The most
feasible factors that are pushing the Australians towards obesity are high rate of intake of
energy rich foods and parallely low rate of physical activity. Hence, a simplistic strategy to
reduce weight gain is to be responsible about personal health and change personal practices to
having healthier foods and be sporty and active. However general facts show that people are
mostly aware of the healthy habits. However, they are always not in apposition to implement
the practice ore are not willing to do so (Carter, Entwistle & Little, 2015).
Hence lot of public interventions have taken place in order to make the people more aware of
the values of obesity control. For instance, cooking classes halve been arranged in Sydney in
order to help the people having diabetes in improving their knowledge about nutrients and
their cooking skills also. However, social circumstances prevented them from pertaining to
the practices. Often it was observed that poor economic practices prevented them bearing the
higher cost of healthy and nutritive foods. In some other cases people felt ashamed to adopt a
food culture different from the major part of the Australian society. Sometimes it has also
been observed that depressions made people resort to consumption of more fast foods and
alcoholic drinks resulting in obesity (Consensus, 2017). Hence it is all the more necessary to
change the environment in which people sustain and progress and thereby align themselves to
the social determinants of health which are work, live and play.

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However, obesity is not only an issue for health departments of Australia. The local
governments of Australia are in an ideal position for increasing the supply of healthier foods
in the market and reducing their prices and in return reducing the supply of unhealthy and
high fat and cholesterol containing foods and discouraging people from consuming such
foods through various health campaigns (Crane et al. 2016). The government of Australia
have undertaken some potential point of purchase labelling along with marketing as well as
portion control. Manu labelling have had high amount of impact on the civilians. They could
be aware of the energy consumed through foods ordered at take away centres or other kind of
food outlets. Estimated stats shows that after adaptation of the intervention strategies, in
every 10% purchase of fast food, 100kilocalories energy consumption have reduced.
However, the good habit could not continue. Shelf signage at the supermalls have been
another potential intervention adopted by the authorities to help the cause (Farringdon, Hands
& Chivers, 2018).
2.1 HR fame work followed by the Healthway (Western Australia)
The campaign aimed at encouraging the Australian people to realise the importance of being
physically fit, active and also eat well. The overall motive of all these necessary activities is
to maintain a healthy weight. Major components of the campaign were mass media based
advertisements including the likes of television activities as well as print advertisements
(Lupton, 2013). Along with all these, a website have been formed as a part of the campaign
that incorporates resources such as meal planning, risk calculator as well as health and diet
control oriented recipes. The detailed focus of the campaign have been on increment of the
link between becoming overweight and occurrence of chronic diseases, thereby promoting
healthy eating habits as well. Furthermore, the campaign also encourages public debate
regarding obesity and the importance of implementation of healthy eating habits and

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committing to physical activities (Lupton, 2015). The entire campaign have been designed
upon six high priority areas. They were
Strategic Health Framework
(Source: Goryakin et al. 2017)
Eating healthier
Within the time from 2012 to 2016, the Department of Health, Western Australia tried to shift
from dietary policies and trends from energy dense foods that have poor nutrient value. On
top of that is the need to improve food security. Before the launch of the Live Lighter
Campaign, in 2012, the authority of Western Australia planned a partnership with the
University of Edith Cowan with the aim of delivering an online suite for food and nutrition
curriculum related support materials for Youngers. In 2013, the Food access and Cost related
survey estimated the cost of nutritious food baskets available in supermarkets (Harray et al.
2017). In the middle of 2015, another survey was conducted which promptly showed that
prices of fresh fruits and vegetables have increased. Various policies were also formulated by
eatingforabetterhealthMoreActiveWestAustraliaCreationofsaferComunitiesReducingAlcoholIntakeEradicationofsmokingMaintainanceofawealthyweight

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the Healthway. The safe Food and Drink policy was started in schools to provide healthy
foods in school canteens and control foods which are high in calorie and energy.
Targeted Interventions
Time to timer various interventions like Healthy Schools campaign, Fuel Your Fututre
campaign and so on have been planned. The Live Lighter campaign have been developed in
Western Australia with an aim to encourage adults in Australia which leads to healthier life
styles in order to make changes in the eating and drinking habits and most importantly be
more proactive. Undoubtedly it is important for families and individuals to make the right
choices regarding their health (Herbert et al. 2017). This would in turn require less
promotions of the junk foods, better labelling of foods and incorporation of policies for
encouraging men to be more active. In June of 2012, the Live Lighter campaign started. The
prime aim was to show the Australians, the ill effects of obesity inside their bodies and thus
stressing on the importance of healthier lifestyle. In 2014, the Campaign won popularity in
Victoria and Northern territory including the capital territory of Australia.
2.2 Comparison of the HP interventions of the LiveLighter with the Social determinants
of Health (WHO)
The data on the rising risk of mental illnesses in Australia shows that mental health would
prove to be an alarming issue in the 21st century. A large number of the Australian people
would suffer from dementia. The list of social determinants of WHO also provides that stress
factors causing Dementia would be an alarming issue for the World. In people aged from 16
to 65. This might prove to be the reason behind various disorders like mood swings, anxiety
and so on. This leads people to crave for more fast food (Knox et al. 2017). The Live Lighter
campaign addresses this problem and includes messages that might make people aware of the
necessity to change their regular food habits. Familied person must remember that such poor

10HEALTH PROMOTION
habits might result in illness that would incur medical costs and future risks. Besides children
growing up in these circumstances would not be able to learn healthy food habits. The factor
of social exclusion is also brought into the limelight in the social determinants of the WHO,
2008. The same cause is being addressed in the Live Lighter with the example of “Grabbable
gut”. People with untoned body posture would lose social recognition. The exponents of the
campaign supposes that the illustrative representation of the internal organs of the body
containing toxic fat would give rise to fear and disgust in the minds of the Australians.
Another issue highlighted in the Social determinants of WHO is addiction (Lupton, 2013).
Major percentage of the Australian people are addicted to poor food habits. They prefer
crispy fried snacks and fast foods. In order to make the people aware of the disadvantages of
these habits, the Live Lighter campaign have included a series of television commercials.
These would portray several social circumstances and try to establish the importance of
pertaining to good food habits. One of the advertisements show a middle aged man advancing
towards the refrigerator to take out a slice of pizza. Midway he suddenly notice his
“grabbable gut” and immediately looks at his children playing in the lounge. He decides to
leave his idea. He realises that if he falls ill owing to these odd food habits, his children
would have to suffer the consequences.
3. Congruency with TWO of Kickbusch‘s (2012) five key determinants of health for 21st
Century
The epidemiological developments of the 21st century shows that overweight would be a
common trait of the people with about 57% of the overweight being obese (Martin, 2015). In
such a state, people are more prone to being attacked by various diseases of which diabetes is
the most threatening. Kickbusch also confirms that the people born in the 21st century would
have lower life expectancy rate in comparison to the previous generation members. The Live

11HEALTH PROMOTION
Lighter campaign have addressed this issue and created illustrative television commercials
for encouraging social awareness.
3.1 The utilisation of Fear
The images of fat encompassed organs and their terrible consequence that have been
portrayed in the print advertisements of the Live Lighter campaign tends to evoke fear in the
people’s mind regarding their health. Such threatening messages through imageries purposed
to evoker fear appeals have also been part of various initiatives destined to change attitude of
the society for better health outcomes including the likes of tetanus vaccination, anti-smoking
campaigns, and campaigns to promote use of condoms and lastly roundworm medication
(Goryakin et al. 2017). The basic strategy of a fear appeal is using dreadful representations to
make the people change certain habits out of fear. The activity can raise anxiety on
deliberation. However, an essential part of the fear appeals is highlighting of the measures
that can be undertaken to avoid those undesirable consequences which people dreads.
Besides, Kickbusch also addresses that in the 21st century the Australian societies are
becoming restructured and they are witnessing more amount of health inequalities. However
some scholars have put up argumentations against the fact that the impact of the obesity
prevention campaigns rest not only on injecting fear in the minds of people regarding the
harmful consequences of odd food habits and unhealthy lifestyles and particularly the
dangerous outcomes associated with obesity (Pausé, 2017). However, the campaign should
parallely advice people about the advantages of physical activity and health food habits
which the campaign wants to promote.
However, it has been observed that maximum number of advertisements of the Live Lighter
campaign focused on toxic fat and puts excess stress on evoking fear and then demonstrating
actions which are aimed at minimising the threat, for evidence taking the steps rather than the

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loft to burn calories, or driving away from the fast food drives via the outlets rather than
driving in there (Herbert et al. 2017).
3.2 Identification and discussion of systems thinking approaches (Stigma, Exclusion and
Disgust)
In this section, the various practices and approaches if the Live Lighter campaign to achieve
their aim have been discussed. Disgust imagery that portrays body products like as urine and
images of body organs have been utilised in some other campaigns that promotes behavioural
changes (McLean, 2015). Some of the scholars are of opinion that a combination of disgust
along with fear aggravates the chances of message persuasion more than those appeals which
only evoke fear. The images of visceral fat have been portrayed in pictorial representation of
wet and veiny organs, and the television advertisement campaigns show the same
encompassed by adipose tissues which are moving as well as pulsating. Other than that,
various kinds of sounds have also been included, the ones that include squelching sounds or
the sound of heartbeats (Carter, 2014). The primary purpose of portrayal of the image of
visceral fat is to evoke disgust in the minds of obese people along with repulsion and horror.
Besides fat bodies of men and women have been subjected to stigmatisation in many
instances. The images aim to make fat an issue for social abjection. This furthermore
indicates internal pollution as well as bears the symbolical implication of fear as well as
danger (Vallis & Inayatullah, 2016).
Thus, this disgust, abjection and stigmatisation that have been objectified in the campaign are
destined to arouse the audiences to resort to selected body expectations for their own selves
and also expecting the same of the others. This campaign also links certain wider media