Public Health Approach to Obesity: Strategies and Interventions

This essay discusses the public health approach to addressing obesity, a condition characterized by excess body fat and a BMI of 30.0 or higher. It highlights the increasing prevalence of obesity globally and the shift in focus towards public health strategies. The essay argues in favor of adopting a public health approach, emphasizing the importance of measuring the problem, identifying risk factors, and implementing effective interventions. It explores the role of public policies, such as taxation, smoking bans, and educational campaigns, in reducing obesity. The essay also discusses the impact of food marketing, decreased physical activity, and reliance on transportation on obesity rates. It concludes that public health interventions, including labeling, tax incentives, and promoting healthy food choices, are essential for combating obesity and improving public health.

Assessment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Obesity denotes a condition where individual have excess body fats and BMI is 30.0 or
more (Medvedyuk, Ali and Raphael, 2018). It implies double burden of malnutrition and as per
present, more individuals are obese in comparison to underweight across Asia and sub-Saharan
Africa. In other words, it can be effectively said to be an epidemic that might worsen without any
kind of substantive changes related with environment. With the passage of time, it has been seen
that the toll of people inflicted with this disease or disorder is constantly increasing. This is
mainly taking place owing to the unhealthy eating habits, consumption of tobacco, maintenance
of ineffective or non proper diet plan, and so forth. The increasing number of cases has made the
government shift their focus towards the issue and take measures with the help of which this
disorder can be effectively controlled and then eradicated. Now, the current essay will illustrate
arguments related with public health approach for obesity and the ways through which issue can
be addressed in an appropriate manner.
MAIN BODY
The disorder that involves excessive body fat which enhances risks related with health
problems is denoted as obesity. It results by consuming more calories rather than the one those
are burned via normal daily activities and exercise. There was a time when this issue was only
present in high-income countries but now this is also experienced by low as well as middle
income countries across the world. BMI is regarded as a way for measuring body size (Karami
and et. al., 2018).
Now, abundant literature is present on the debate relating to the effectiveness of individual
approach and public health approach towards the reduction of obesity. In this relation, many of
the scholars have demonstrated arguments in favour of individual approach while others have
extended their support to the public health approach (Baranowski, Motil and Moreno, 2019).
With respect to this, it can be effectively stated that the current essay will be dealing with the
arguments that are dealing in extending the support for adopting a public health approach to deal
with the largely increasing cases of obesity across the globe, especially England. Public health
approach is basically referred to as the method that involves measurement of the problem,
determination of risk factors and exploring the ways through which these issues could be
addressed in an appropriate manner (Aggarwal and Jain, 2018). Along with this, the approach is
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also supportive in implementing effective business strategies so that the impact of the obesity on
the health condition of the person can be improved.
With reference to clinical medicine, the public health approach emphasise on all the aspects
which comprises of socio-cultural, environmental and behavioural factors which makes their
contribution for injury and disease for population (Stanford, Tauqeer and Kyle, 2018). An
instance can be taken to understand this aspect, like from last 40 years government have made
various efforts as well as private sector initiatives have lead to decrease the prevalence half via
taxation through smoking bans within public places, tobacco products, prohibition of laws,
aggressive educational campaigns and advertisement of restrictions. There is treatment that
conventionally emphasise on obesity field and this can be prevented through the usage of public
health models that will be critical for making progress with reference to population levels. There
exist encouraging signs which communities around the world are addressing complexities that
leads to cause obesity and formulate reforms for improvisation of health along with children.
Public policies alter to deal with chronic and infectious diseases that will be critical for
minimisation of the toll related with physical in-activities, obesity and poor diet (Blüher, 2019).
The calorie intake of every person varies from one another and this is one of the ways to
identify the probability of being inflicted by obesity in the long term. In this relation, it has been
analysed that the new farming activities, subsidy, and the innovations within the procedures such
as processing, packaging, preservation, and refrigeration have accounted to the availability of
abundant food. This has the potential to be effectively as well as easily maintained, stored and
thereby transported across the country to different cities and states (Sanyaolu and et. al., 2019). It
is well known that the food and beverage sector spend a handsome sum of money each year upon
the advertisement and promotion of restaurants, eateries, cafes and hotels. This helps in capturing
the attention of the public at large towards the food offering provided by different organizations
operating within the global landscape. Now, the effectiveness as well as the lucrativeness of the
marketing practices of the food sector leads the people to get tempted and thereby fall for getting
high intake of the calorie content in general (Khayatzadeh-Mahani, Ruckert and Labonté, 2018).
On one side, the consumption of unhealthy food and beverage items has significantly increased
with the passage of time while simultaneously it has also been noted that the extent of activities
and physical exercises undergone by the individuals on a daily basis have also largely decreased
with the passage of time. In addition to this, it has also been noted that the use of vehicles,
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whether public transport or personal vehicles, has also increased as the technology is advancing
and progressing. This has further worsened the approach of people towards the maintenance of
their health status and well being in the long run. Too much reliance on the modes of
transportation and not doing walk or any other physical activity has also made the people
become prone to large number of chronic diseases inclusive of the one being discussed here
named obesity (Black, Hughes and Jones, 2018). This has further led to the deterioration of the
situation related to the number of people being inflicted by the disorder named obesity on a daily
as well as annual basis.
To deal with this and making the public aware of the importance of maintaining the daily
calorie intake, public health policy and interventions tend to play a major role. The policies and
interventions have the authority to impose compulsion such as the imposition of labels that report
and inform the users of the nutrient and calorie intake in every food and beverage item that they
consume (Skinner and et. al., 2018). The other kinds of strategies that can be implemented within
a public health approach to reduction of obesity encompass the sale of more healthy foods in
fast-food restaurant, tax incentivisations, and limit imposed upon the sale of high-calorie, low-
nutrient snacks in any kind of public premises. These are some of the arguments that have been
presented by the authors as well as scholars via the presentation of expansive literature on the
subject matter of effective obesity reduction approach (Dietz, 2019). Even when there are many
scholars, researchers and academicians that have pointed out towards the effectiveness of
adopting an individual approach to deal with the obesity, the advantages and effectiveness of
public health approach is heavier when weighed with the individual approach to obesity
reduction. Further, it has also been noted that the initiatives like increasing the number of
pedestrian malls in public places and encouraging people to walk or ride bicycles to work and
school, exercise by increasing the availability of recreational centers, parks, and workplace gyms
as well as requiring physical education in schools can only be facilitated by virtue of the order
passed by government (Jastreboff and et. al., 2019). This implies that strict and ardent course of
action can only be taken towards reduction of obesity in case of the public health approach.
The first and foremost benefit of public health approach is that it is focusing on targeting
intervention so that they can easily meet the needs with the services. Here, obesity people are
becoming more conscious towards their health care plan and developing long term objectives for
themselves so that they can easily reduce the negative influence of the health condition in every
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each manner. As per these plans only health care practitioners takes several initiatives and
provide treatment to the patients. Healthy population without any chronic conditions may require
different interventions to remain healthy if they are older adults rather than children; although
both age groups need periodic primary care visits, immunizations and blood pressure screening,
older adults should receive cancer screenings and routine laboratory work to monitor glucose and
lipid levels, for example (Reifsnider, Jeong and Chatterjee, 2020). Furthermore, geographic and
social circumstances can adversely affect health; people living in unsafe neighborhoods may lack
options for healthy outdoor exercise, which increases risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease.
A combination of community and clinical approaches may have a synergistic effect for
managing obesity and promoting wellness.
Apart from this, the respective health care practitioner also focuses on considering the
cost of implementing the public health approaches so that they can easily find out best solution
for the obesity patient in rightful manner (Gomez and Stanford, 2018). Also, the health care
practitioners who makes use of public health approaches also focuses on making effective use of
available resources as all of them are provided to them so that they can make specialist care,
tertiary care, specialist care as well social services too.
Public health recognizes that tests, treatments and interventions must be affordable,
acceptable to people, and reasonably convenient (Nimptsch, Konigorski and Pischon, 2019). To
make progress toward this ideal it is essential to move toward improved communication with
patients, health education, and health literacy. Public health has always promoted health
education, and public health research has shown that meaningful patient engagement does reduce
disparities in health and lead to more positive health behaviors and improved disease self-
management (Carter, Baranauskas and Fly, 2020).
CONCLUSION
On the basis of the discussion done above in the essay, it can be comprehensively said
that public health is an effective approach towards reducing obesity within the citizens of a
specific nation or the world as a whole. In this relation, it can be effectively stated that there are
several authors that extend their support to adoption of public health approach towards the
reduction of obesity, however, there are many that still think that this is a matter of critique.
These authors mainly consider that the individual approach to dealing with and reducing obesity
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is much better and can yield better results in the long run to make the world free from obesity
with the passage of years. Above mentioned are several arguments that demonstrate the benefits
of opting for a public health approach towards obesity reduction. Thus, the main inference is that
the public health approach has an edge over the individual approach to deal with the increasing
number of cases of obesity across the globe.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Medvedyuk, S., Ali, A. and Raphael, D., 2018. Ideology, obesity and the social determinants of
health: a critical analysis of the obesity and health relationship. Critical Public
Health, 28(5), pp.573-585.
Karami, A., Dahl, A.A., Turner-McGrievy, G., Kharrazi, H. and Shaw Jr, G., 2018.
Characterizing diabetes, diet, exercise, and obesity comments on Twitter. International
Journal of Information Management, 38(1), pp.1-6.
Baranowski, T., Motil, K.J. and Moreno, J.P., 2019. Public Health Procedures, Alone, Will Not
Prevent Child Obesity. Childhood Obesity, 15(6), pp.359-362.
Stanford, F.C., Tauqeer, Z. and Kyle, T.K., 2018. Media and its influence on obesity. Current
obesity reports, 7(2), pp.186-192.
Aggarwal, B. and Jain, V., 2018. Obesity in children: definition, etiology and approach. The
Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 85(6), pp.463-471.
Blüher, M., 2019. Obesity: global epidemiology and pathogenesis. Nature Reviews
Endocrinology, 15(5), pp.288-298.
Sanyaolu, A., Okorie, C., Qi, X., Locke, J. and Rehman, S., 2019. Childhood and Adolescent
Obesity in the United States: A Public Health Concern. Global Pediatric Health, 6,
p.2333794X19891305.
Khayatzadeh-Mahani, A., Ruckert, A. and Labonté, R., 2018. Obesity prevention: co-framing for
intersectoral ‘buy-in’. Critical Public Health, 28(1), pp.4-11.
Nimptsch, K., Konigorski, S. and Pischon, T., 2019. Diagnosis of obesity and use of obesity
biomarkers in science and clinical medicine. Metabolism, 92, pp.61-70.
Black, N., Hughes, R. and Jones, A.M., 2018. The health care costs of childhood obesity in
Australia: An instrumental variables approach. Economics & Human Biology, 31, pp.1-
13.
Skinner, A.C., Ravanbakht, S.N., Skelton, J.A., Perrin, E.M. and Armstrong, S.C., 2018.
Prevalence of obesity and severe obesity in US children, 1999–2016. Pediatrics, 141(3).
Dietz, W.H., 2019. We need a new approach to prevent obesity in low-income minority
populations. Pediatrics, 143(6), p.e20190839.
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Carter, S.J., Baranauskas, M.N. and Fly, A.D., 2020. Considerations for Obesity, Vitamin D, and
Physical Activity Amid the COVID‐19 Pandemic. Obesity.
Jastreboff, A.M., Kotz, C.M., Kahan, S., Kelly, A.S. and Heymsfield, S.B., 2019. Obesity as a
disease: the obesity society 2018 position statement. Obesity, 27(1), pp.7-9.
Reifsnider, E., Jeong, M. and Chatterjee, P., 2020. An ecological approach to obesity in mexican
american children. Journal of Pediatric Health Care, 34(3), pp.212-221.
Gomez, G. and Stanford, F.C., 2018. US health policy and prescription drug coverage of FDA-
approved medications for the treatment of obesity. International Journal of
Obesity, 42(3), pp.495-500.
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