Healthcare Policy and Obesity in Children and Young Adults

This report addresses the escalating healthcare policy concern of obesity among young children and young adults, emphasizing its prevalence and associated health risks. The paper delves into the implications of improper diets, lack of exercise, and the rising rates of severe obesity in the United States. It proposes a comprehensive initiative involving educational programs in schools to teach the importance of nutrition, exercise, and healthy lifestyles for both children and their families. The proposed solution aims to reduce the risk of obesity and diabetes, and it suggests expanding online platforms to provide information to a wider audience, including healthcare professionals. The report also analyzes the challenges and benefits of the proposed solution, identifies Senator Andrew Koenig as a key elected official for advocacy, and concludes by highlighting the importance of proactive interventions for improving public health. The report provides a detailed analysis of the issue, including the role of advocacy in healthcare policy and the responsibility of advanced practice nurses in influencing practice standards. It references relevant studies and provides a clear definition of severe obesity, advocating for a state-wide program to address the concern.

Running head: HEALTHCARE POLICY CONCERN
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Healthcare Policy Concern
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Healthcare Policy Concern: Prevalence of Obesity among Young Children and Young Adults
Healthcare policy encompasses creating and implementing of regulations, rules, and laws
for the management of the healthcare system of the nation. It involves guidelines aimed at
achieving healthcare goals in society. There are existing implications for healthcare policies
which include improvement of people's quality of life and influence of positive change.
Advocacy's role is to unify as well as support the nursing occupation and also revolutionize
healthcare. Advocacy's impact on healthcare policy is that it offers knowledge on the intended
recipient for particular strategies as well as the measurable results after the implementation of the
system. An Advanced Practice Nurse's responsibility includes advocacy since a professional's
role is to offer quality care assurance through the influence of practice standards by the use of the
policy (Stadhouders et al., 2018). Being a leader, they should encourage as well as embrace
reforms to help in addressing challenges and benefits for any possible system. This paper focuses
on an opioid crisis healthcare concern in Missouri, offer a solution to the healthcare concern,
identified official, and a summary.
Prevalence of Obesity among Young People
In the modern-day, there has been an increase in disorders resulting from improper diets
and nutrition and lack of exercise, which is severely affecting young people all over the world.
One of the most prevalent disorders associated with lack of proper diets and exercise among
young people is Obesity. Prevailing severe Obesity among children as well as young adults has
increased in the past few years, leading to heightened concern and awareness regarding the
metabolic and cardiovascular health of people in the group. In the United States, between 1999
and 2004, 4% of young adults and children between 2-9 years were classified to have severe
Obesity (Ehehalt et al., 2017). Also, recently, between 2011 and 2012, severe Obesity prevailed

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to about 6% in the same age group. Cardiometabolic risk factors are high in children with
Obesity as compared to those who have a healthy weight. Using only one category for Obesity
fails to take varying obesity severity into account. The American Heart Association pointed out
several studies showing more obesity forms that are more severe which were associated with a
higher immediate risk of complications which is weight-related such as blood glucose levels,
abnormal lipid, and increase in blood pressure levels. Severe Obesity is clearly defined to be
120% of 95th percentile of the BMI while markedly severe Obesity is 140% of 95th percentile.
With children approaching adulthood, the percentile curves to 35 BMI for severe Obesity and 40
for markedly severe Obesity (Lifshitz et al., 2016).
Solving the Obesity Crisis among Children and Teenagers
Coming up with an all-inclusive program, and implementing it in elementary, middle,
and high schools is the first step towards successfully mitigating the increasing cases of obesity
among children and young adults. The Initiative could focus on educating children as well as
their families on the importance of exercise, nutrition, and diet. The knowledge will ultimately
yield positive results. The United State is greatly affected by the increasing rate of obesity cases
among younger people. Offering an initiative to educate children on the importance of proper
dieting and exercise will thus help in reducing the risk of Obesity as well as diabetes in children.
The Initiative will ascertain that every school receives a complete syllabus on nutrition as it is
applicable to daily life, thus molding healthy children (Messmer et al., 2016). In addition, the
Initiative will also include treatment knowledge, as there are children who already have diabetes
and obesity disorders. The program needs to be designed in a way that it is accessible to not only
the students but also to the teachers and parents of the children.

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The information regarding diet, exercise, and nutrition should also be available on online
platforms. This can help include a wide range of people all over the world to get better
knowledge on how to feed their children. Children can also make informed decisions on what to
consume and what to leave out (Eisenberg & Burgess, 2015). Eventually, there will be a
successful catch in the mitigation of cases of Obesity and diabetes among young people. There
should also be an expansion in the access of the online platform where not only children,
teachers, and parents get access to the knowledge. The nutrition professionals also need access to
the platform as they will help in adding more information and knowledge to the individuals in
need of the information (Torres-Fuentes et al., 2015). Also, healthcare practitioners need access
to the platform, so they can provide the statistics of the cases of Obesity and diabetes among the
group of young people and children.
There are benefits arising from the implementation of the healthy Initiative in elementary,
middle, and high schools. First, there will be an improvement in the safety of young people as
they will learn the dos and don’ts to lead a healthy lifestyle (Haczeyni et al., 2015). Equipped
with the information, the young people will exercise more as well as eat healthy Physical activity
in school, home, and in the community will also increase among the young children. Ultimately,
the culture of hard work and participation will be installed in these young people, which is a
great move towards making a future foundation of leadership (American Diabetes Association,
2018). There is also a decrease in the financial strain caused by parents with kids suffering from
diabetes and Obesity. Healthy children are more likely to have high self-esteem, giving them the
ability to stand firm and acquire the intended knowledge at school. Consequently, this portrays a
positive correlation in implementing the implementation of a healthy initiative which aims at
educating children, their families on the importance of exercise, diet, and nutrition.

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Challenges also emanate from the above solution. One of the main challenges is that a
significant number of people are ignorant. The education initiative can fail to work on these
kinds of people are they are likely to listen but fail to put the acquired knowledge into practice.
As a result, effectiveness may not be achieved wholly; however, education and training will be
effective as some people will practice what is taught. Another challenge is that there are people
who acquire Obesity through inheritance. In rare cases, there is a pattern of inherited Obesity in
families caused by a particular variant of one gene, which is monogenic Obesity (DiMaria-
Ghalili et al., 2014). Therefore, it is hard to control this kind of obesity prevalence. In addition,
children might be unwilling to change their eating habits and also fail to exercise, which will
thus not be effective to some people. An individual's willingness to put the education in practice
will determine whether the Initiative is effective.
Elected Official
The presentation of the healthcare official will be done in the presence of Senator
Andrew Koenig, Missouri’s Senator who represents the 15th districts including Valley Park,
Fenton, Des Peres, Wildwood, Kirkwood, Chesterfield, Twin Oaks, Winchester, Ellisville,
Clarkson Valley, Sunset Hills, Glendale, Ballwin among others. He was elected because he was a
good representative of my district. To help in escalating the concern, community awareness on
obesity and diabetes prevalence will be the first step in the different regions, followed by the
state governor and ultimately the U.S. Senator. After reviewing the membership of the
community, they can select one which suits the healthcare policy concern in question. The
Health and Pensions Committee works on considering as well as reporting bills which are related
to MO HealthNet which is an alternative system which delivers healthcare proposals on hospital
operations, development disability, Disease control, and substance addiction and abuse (Rose,

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2018). Senator Koenig's desire to bring on changes will be of benefit to the residents.
Additionally, he has bills that are healthcare-related, so a state-wide program aimed at educating
elementary, middle school and high school children on the need for healthy diet and exercise
thus solving the issue of obesity and diabetes prevalence among young people (Li et al., 2016).
Conclusion
Health is vital for each individual, necessitating the implementation of improved
solutions to the present issues. Young people are expected to become future leaders, and thus
looking into their health is vital. Obesity and diabetes are prevalent in children and young people
which calls for intervention by every person, including parents, children, and healthcare
practitioners. Children in elementary, middle, and high school should be educated on the
increased risk of diabetes and Obesity due to lack of exercise and taking sugary diets. They need
information on the vitality of exercise, nutrition, and diet to help achieve a healthy society.

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References
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(2014). Challenges and opportunities for nutrition education and training in the health
care professions: intraprofessional and interprofessional call to action — the American
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Ehehalt, S., Wiegand, S., Körner, A., Schweizer, R., Liesenkötter, K. P., Partsch, C. J., ... & Neu,
A. (2017). Diabetes screening in overweight and obese children and adolescents:
choosing the right test. European journal of pediatrics, 176(1), 89-97.
Eisenberg, D. M., & Burgess, J. D. (2015). Nutrition education in an era of global Obesity and
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Haczeyni, F., Barn, V., Mridha, A. R., Yeh, M. M., Estevez, E., Febbraio, M. A., ... & Farrell, G.
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Lifshitz, F., Casavalle, P. L., Bordoni, N., Rodriguez, P. N., & Friedman, S. M. (2016). Oral
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Stadhouders, N., Kruse, F., Tanke, M., Koolman, X., & Jeurissen, P. (2018). Effective healthcare
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Torres-Fuentes, C., Schellekens, H., Dinan, T. G., & Cryan, J. F. (2015). A natural solution for
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