University Health Promotion: Sports-Based Intervention for Children

This report details a health promotion plan focused on sports-based interventions, specifically football, to address the increasing incidence of heart disease in Tasmania, Australia. The plan targets grade 8 children and aims to raise awareness about heart disease, its risk factors, and preventive strategies. The report outlines the rationale for the intervention, which is based on the high prevalence of obesity and diabetes among children and the physical and psychological benefits of sports participation. The plan includes a social media campaign for recruitment and engagement, a strategy for selecting schools and children, and the recruitment and training of coaches. Initial health assessments and the delivery of health messages are also detailed. Furthermore, the report covers the intervention timeline, budget, and evaluation strategies. The empowerment and social cognitive theories are used to underpin the intervention. The program is intended to be evidence-based and ethical, with considerations for potential partnerships and limitations. The report concludes with a discussion of the program's potential impact on the health of the target community.

Running head: HEALTH PROMOTION
Sports based approach to community development
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
What is the issue?................................................................................................................3
Goals to address the issue....................................................................................................5
Rationale..............................................................................................................................6
Theory of change and impact of SBD.................................................................................6
Health promotion plan.........................................................................................................7
Social media campaign to contact with relevant people......................................................7
Strategy of recruitment, targeting audience and intervention..............................................8
Health assessment..............................................................................................................10
Health messages.................................................................................................................10
Football intervention..........................................................................................................11
Training of coaches............................................................................................................12
Timeline and budget..........................................................................................................12
Monitoring and evaluation of football interventions.........................................................14
Limitations.........................................................................................................................16
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................16
References..........................................................................................................................17

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Introduction
The assignment deals with the issue of increasing incidence of heart disease due to
obesity and diabetes, in Australia. The main focus of the paper is the health promotion plan for
addressing the issue of the high prevalence of heart disease. The report aims to develop health
promotion program, focussing on the sports-based intervention. Considering the time and budget
limitations, the intervention is focused on the specific community of Australia named Tasmania,
which was found with the high rate of disease as per the report by the Heart Foundations (Heart
Foundation, 2018). People of this area have been found to experience the highest rate of angina,
heart attack or stroke. They are also at risk of repeated attack (Abs.gov.au, 2018). The
assignment discusses the health issue in details and its future implication. The rationale for the
sports-based health promotion plan is discussed in details, along with steps of implementing the
interventions, collaboration with partners, timeline, budget plan and evaluation strategies.
What is the issue?
There is an increasing incidence of heart disease in Australia in 2016. Heart disease
comprises of heart problems, such as blood vessel disease or stroke. It is the major cause of death
in Australia and one of the leading diseases in the world. In every 12 minutes, one person is
killed due to heart disease. In 2014-2015, more than 3% of the population was found to have
long-term CHD condition. This accounts to 620,000 Australians. In 2016, all the 12% deaths
were due to heart disease (Heart Foundation, 2018; ABC News, 2018, Nichols et al., 2016).
Heart disease is one of the largest chronic health problems in Australia. It is the increasing
burden on the economy despite several burdens in last few years.

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The focus of the paper is to promote health program in Tasmania. Based on the heart
foundation report, increasing number of people are experiencing uncontrolled high blood
pressure and unmanaged high cholesterol. As per the heart foundation reports, 29.9% of the
people in North East Tasmania have the highest rate of cardiovascular disease. More than 47% of
the people in south-east Tasmania have the highest rate of cholesterol. A 33% of them also have
the high rate of obesity, and less than 29% were found to be active (Abs.gov.au, 2018, Heart
Foundation, 2018; ABC News, 2018; Nichols et al., 2016).
The population highly vulnerable to the heart disease and hospitalisations includes
people from the low socioeconomic group, Indigenous communities, and those living in remote
locations. People with social disadvantage poorly access health care and consume less healthy
food. These people are socially isolated and thus have poor awareness of early interventions.
They are many with no medical insurances, poverty, unemployment, which is significantly
affecting the healthy choices. Heart disease was highly prevalent among obese and diabetic
people. According to World Health Organisation, these are the risk factor for heart disease in the
long run (www.abc.net.au, 2018; Mendis, Davis & Norrving, 2015). The issue is occurring as the
awareness among people about heart disease as the leading cause of the death is very poor. In
Tasmania, most of the people as per the Heart Foundation's chief executive were yet to
experience heart attacks or strokes. They have several risk factors of heart attack and strokes
such as stroke, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, smoking, and alcohol (Piepoli et al., 2016;
Nichols et al., 2016).
Children are the main focus for the health promotion plan in this assignment. It is
because in Tasmania 23.1% of the children aged 2-17 years were found to be overweight, 8.1%
were found to be obese. These children were found to be mainly living sedentary lifestyle. There

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is also combined prevalence of overweight and obesity (Nichols et al., 2016; Roberts et al.,
2014). These children have a high risk of heart disease in adulthood. It is because the adults who
were suffering from heart disease were also found to be obese in childhood.
Goals to address the issue
A health promotion program will be developed to address the issue. The program will be
targeted to main children in Tasmania, who are at risk of heart disease in their near future due to
obesity and diabetes. The children of grade 8 will be targeted for this short-term project. Once
the plan is successful, it may be implemented on the wider scale.
The main goal of health promotion plan is
 Develop interactive health education program through social media for children in
a township in Tasmania
 Create awareness about the heart disease- symptoms, risk factors and future
implications
 Educate about preventive strategies
 Promote health through sports-based intervention- like football and in setting
present the health messages
 Assess the acceptability of the program
 Measure changes in health knowledge of children after intervention

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Rationale
The rationale for children as the target for this health promotion plan is the high
prevalence of obese and diabetic children and risk for heart attack in the near future (Roberts et
al., 2014; Ayer et al., 2015).
The rationale for the sports-based intervention is the significant physical benefits.
According to “United Nations Inter-agency Task Force”, participating in sports have contributed
to people’s ability to live healthy lifestyle. Sports are associated with increased life expectancy,
improve well being, and decrease the risk of non-communicable disease. According to Taskforce
report, sports engagement increases self-esteem and confidence, decrease depression and
enhance the discipline, resilience and teamwork (Kokko, 2016). According to World Health
Organisation, engaging in 30 minutes of physical activity a day may have significant health
benefits. Exercises have been associated with a decrease in hypertension, cholesterol, and
diabetes-related symptoms (Cleland et al., 2014). According to Fuller et al. (2010) many
organisations in the world have adopted football-based activities to raise awareness and increase
healthy lifestyle habits among people
Theory of change and impact of SBD
The health promotion program is guided by empowerment theory. It is useful for
understanding the complexities of increasing the physical activity levels through sports-based
health intervention. This theory focuses on social relation of power. It explains the processes by
which personal and social aspects of life allow and constraint behaviour. People have the ability
to take control of their life but are affected by demographic and contextual factor. Addressing
these factors will empower people to take control of their life (Tengland, 2016). Sports

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interventions will empower children and increase their self esteem to change behaviour. It will
improve life of inactive children by tailoring sports accordingly. The barriers such as
environmental, political, sociocultural, and economic factors to participation in sports can be
explained by empowerment theory.
The social cognitive theory also underpins the football-based health program. According
to this theory, health behaviour is affected by personal life experiences, as well as environmental
factors. This theory allows supporting people by instilling expectations and self-efficacy. This
theory also focuses on observational learning. When a person observes other reaping benefits of
healthy behaviour, then he or she is highly likely to engage in similar behaviour. Sports
interventions will help children to observe each other and reinforce healthy behaviour instead of
a sedentary lifestyle. It will increase the behavioural capability that is to develop a skill to
perform the behaviour. Sports is also associated with high self-efficacy (Young et al., 2016).
Health promotion plan
Social media campaign to contact with relevant people
Before starting with the sports-based health intervention program, the community people
of Tasmania will be acquainted with the program and its benefits. The aim of the sports-based
intervention for children in grade 8 will be informed to people along with purpose and time. The
benefits of participating in the program will be highlighted. The social media tools to be used are
Facebook. It is the best way to engage school students, teachers, coaches and parents, resolve
their queries and take consent if they want to be the part of the sport-based intervention. Videos
based on sports like football and how it improves health will be posted (Brusse et al., 2014).

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The rationale for using social media campaign or marketing of the sports-based health
promotion plan is the large numbers of people using social media on a daily basis including
school students. Therefore, it is the evidence-based option for health promotion. Even healthcare
providers use social networking sites for creating awareness on various health issues (Ventola,
2014). For example, Breast cancer prevention Facebook page. Zhang et al., 2015 conducted
social media-based exercise and assessed the influence of improving the physical activity after
13-weeks of participation. As per the results, there was an increase in enrolment into exercise
classes among both young and older adults after watching the promotional messages and health
videos on Facebook. It will help the children and parents to get awareness of lifestyle changes to
prevent heart disease in future.
Strategy of recruitment, targeting audience and intervention
Selection of school and children
Availability of schools will be identified to ensure it can better support the intervention.
One school will be located within township of Tasmania. The school will be recruited to the
program randomly through social media page. Grade 8 children will be recruited to the main part
of the study. Both female and male children will be recruited for football based intervention.
They will be asked to undertake Football for health programme
The final selection of the audience will be determined from collaboration with schools
and parents. Consent will be taken from school authorities as well as from parents. Only children
who are willing to participate will be taken into consideration. The purpose of the program and
befits will be shared through a letter with the administrators of schools as well as parents.

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Children will be admitted for intervention only after approval from school and parents as also
mentioned in similar intervention in (Fuller et al., 2010).
Staff and coach recruitment
From local community 23 coaches will be recruited, and 10 of them will act as standby
and work when other coaches will be absent. Coach groups comprise of group of men and
women who can speak in local languages fluently and could be trained as coaches/instructor for
the intervention. It will be ensured that the men and women will have cultural awareness and
recruited if they are familiar with the local customs and practices. A coach guide will be
prepared that will contain a summary of the purpose of the promotion plan and what should be
the commitment of coaches to implement the program on a day to day business.
For posting health-related motivated messages on the Facebook page, appropriate staff
will be recruited. They will develop appropriate content related to football-based health
education. Facebook fans will be engaged through share, comment, like and upload options and
follow us (Barry et al., 2014).
Potential partnerships include Non-governmental organisations and other local
organisations with sufficient experience in delivering the football-based health education
programme.
Approval for intervention
Approval will be taken to deliver the program in school time from the health science
faculty nearby the community as well as the education department to maintain ethics (McPhail‐
Bell et al., 2015).

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Health assessment
Before starting with the sports-based interventions, the grade 8 children will be subjected
to initial health assessment to observe the vital signs and health profile. It will be later compared
to the health status after the intervention. The health profile may include the height, weight,
BMI, waist circumference, blood pressure, cholesterol level, heart rate, respiratory rate and pulse
rate. Using the questionnaire, the participating children will be assessed for their awareness on
the importance of sports and health benefits and the rise in awareness will be compared after
interventions (Eldredge et al., 2016).
Health messages
For social media page and school sports interventions the health messages will include,
“eat healthy live healthy”, “play football to fight obesity” and others and each of them will be
linked to football skills as given below-
Session Health message Football skills Risk factors
1 Play football
(physical exercise)
Play football Physical inactivity, high
blood pressure, BMI,
cholesterol
2 Avoid junk food Dribbling Eating fat-rich foods
3 Eat balanced diet Building fitness Overweight
Poor intake of fruits and
vegetables
4 Fair play Teamwork Social and family

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support
5 Take regular health
check-up
Goalkeeping Improper protection of
health
6 Protection from sugar-
rich foods
Heading Overeating candy and
flavoured drinks
The messages will be decided in collaboration by the coaches as well as teachers.
Football intervention
The game of football will be mirrored where each session will be kept for 90 minutes.
There will be two halves, and each will be of 45 minutes. In the first, half children will play
football. They will be coached in specific skills and the second half they will play fair. In this
half, the children will be educated to focus on heart disease and how it is related to obesity and
diabetes. They will be explained how it is caused, risk factors, and how can it be prevented
through sports participation.
After playing football, the children will be asked to give a short review on the previous
week’s football assignment, which they will complete at home. They will ask to take five warm-
up exercises for injury preventions the children will be given adequate instructions. They will be
asked to present the next week's homework for football. For each participant, a praise partner
will be assigned (Fuller et al., 2010).
For play fair, the children will be asked to present the home-based assignment on health
and present facts and learnings about each health message, interact about these health messages
in Facebook. The children will be asked to present the understanding of messages with link to

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the football skills. They will be asked to comment on the praises of their partner’s positive
actions and attitudes demonstrated by children in each session (Fuller et al., 2010).
Training of coaches
Each coach will be given the copy of Guide, and they will be subjected to the training
programme for five days. It will cover both aspects of the Play Football and Play Fair before
delivering the Football based intervention.
Timeline and budget
The health promotion plan using the sports-based intervention will be implemented
within timeline of one year. It may be continued based on the outcomes for more years. It may
take one month approximately to execute the plan. The time retrospective plan is presented to the
team (Eldredge et al., 2016).
2018 campaign timescale
Activities Timescale
Partnership engagements
Hiring staff
June- July 2018
Plan project
Social media page
sports centres collaboration
security requirements
July- Aug 2018
Development of protocols,
Prepare survey questionnaires
Sept- Nov 2018