NURBN2009 Essay: Ottawa Charter, Health Literacy, and Empowerment

This essay examines the application of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion within a nursing context, focusing on a health promotion project targeting obesity in Pakenham. It discusses the six main action areas of the Ottawa Charter—building healthy public policy, creating supportive environments, strengthening community actions, developing personal skills, and reorienting health services—and how each area can be leveraged to address obesity. The essay highlights the crucial role of nurses in implementing these strategies, including advocating for policies that promote healthy eating and physical activity, educating the public on health literacy, and empowering community members to take control of their health. It also addresses potential challenges, such as low health literacy and the need for environmental modifications to support healthy lifestyles. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of holism, ecology, and caring in ensuring the progress of health promotion strategies and the need for community members to exercise control over their health decisions.

Running head: HEALTH PROMOTION 1
Health Promotion
Students Name
Institutional Affiliation

HEALTH PROMOTION 2
Introduction
Ottawa charter was the first International Conference on Health promotion held on 21st
November 1986 in Ottawa. The Ottawa charter identifies six main areas of action for health
promotion which include building a healthy public policy, strengthening community actions,
creating supportive environments, developing personals skills and reorienting health services.
My health promotion program is obesity in Pakenham. There exists a strong relationship between
poor literacy and health education and the increased cases of obesity in Pakenham. It is therefore
vital to ensure that nurses and other health professionals increase health promotion measures
with reference to the actions of the Ottawa charter are increased in the area to help the people
improve their health.
Building a healthy public policy
Building a healthy public policy entails ensuring that health policies are easier and
possible for people to improve their health (The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, 2016).
Policies play an important role in enhancing physical activities and increasing access to healthy
food which is critical in promoting a healthy weight and hence preventing obesity. Nurses play a
crucial role in ensuring that the policies implemented include aspects of health promotion (What
Is the Nurse's Role in Health Promotion, 2017). Firstly, my health promotion program intends to
ensure that food policies are implemented to regulate the consumption of fatty and sugary foods
by ensuring that manufacturers indicate the level of sugar and fats on the labels (Roberto, Soo &
Pomeranz, 2015).
Secondly, my program also intends to ensure that more policies that promote health
awareness are implemented in Pakenham. For instance, there is a need for Nurses to offer health

HEALTH PROMOTION 3
education to people ensure that they are aware of the number of fats and sugars they are
supposed to consume and the health effects of consuming too much of unhealthy food
(Chiverton, Votava & Tortoretti, 2013). Thirdly, my health program seeks to ensure that fatty
and sugary foods are highly taxed while the prices for vegetables are reduced. Lastly, my
program also plans to ensure that there is a regulation of the advertising of unhealthy foods
(Roberto et al., 2015). This will play a significant role in ensuring that people reduce their intake
of these foods. However, Lack of knowledge on how to implement the policies might impact the
success of my program.
Creating supportive environments
Creating supportive environments ensures that people are safe from factors that can affect
one's health (The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, 2016). Research indicates that creating
supportive environments help people make healthy choices concerning physical activities and
their diet. Lack of physical activities is one of the leading causes of obesity in Pakenham.
Although physical activity may be considered a personal choice, it highly depends on the
supporting environments that help people adopt this healthy lifestyle (Supportive environments
needed to encourage physical activity, 2012). Low socioeconomic status is associated with
increased cases of obesity. Therefore, my health program encourages physical activities among
these people may help reduce the cases of obesity (Lobstein & Swinburn, n.d).
Nurses play a crucial role in educating people to engage in activities that improve their
health and reduce obesity (Kemppainen, Tossavainen & Turunen, 2013). For instance, they
encourage, convince and provide people with attitude, skill, and knowledge to engage in physical
activities and make an informed choice about the food they take. However, health education and

HEALTH PROMOTION 4
delivering of programs with the aim of changing an individual’s lifestyle may not help change
their behavior if their environment fails to encourage healthy eating and physical activity
lifestyle (Supportive environments needed to encourage physical activity, 2012). Therefore, my
program emphasizes on the need to modify the environment where people live to ensure that
they engage in physical activities.
My program suggests that there should be an increased provision of indoor recreational
facilities such as a gymnasium. There should also be the introduction of outdoor recreational
facilities such as play areas in Pakenham (Supportive environments needed to encourage
physical activity, 2012). Literacy may impact my program as the majority of the people do not
know more about the healthy foods they should take and the benefits of physical activities. As a
result, they may end up consuming unhealthy foods and not engaging in physical activities
(Health Literacy, 2019).
Strengthening community actions
Strengthening community actions is involving the community in planning, making
decisions and implementing health promotion measures and evaluating the effectiveness (The
Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, 2016). It also involves gathering community resources to
offer social support and help to the people and enhancing public participation of the community
members in their health matters (Bhuyan, 2016). The resources that the Pakenham community
have include an accessible and safe cycling and walking infrastructure and fertile land for the
production of fresh food.
My program aims at ensuring that the people become more empowered in that they
utilize the walking and cycling paths to enhance physical activities as opposed to driving cars

HEALTH PROMOTION 5
(Lobstein & Swinburn, n.d). My program also aims at ensuring that people consume healthy and
fresh foods as opposed to manufactures ones with high calories and sugars. However, this may
be affected by lack of knowledge on the benefits of cycling, walking and taking healthy foods.
Nurses can empower community members by helping them understand the risks of obesity and
explaining to them that losing weight entails eating less while exercising more (What Is the
Nurse's Role in Health Promotion, 2017). They can also support the community members and
letting them take more responsibility for managing their weight (Bhuyan, 2016). Nurses can also
assess their health behaviors before giving interventions to ensure that they are sustainable.
Nurses can also dispel myths in the community concerning weight loss as it can be a significant
obstacle in fighting obesity (Chiverton et al., 2013).
Developing personal skills
Developing personal skills in health promotion involves providing health information,
improving life skills and promoting health education (Developing personal skills, 2015).
Developing personal skills of the people living with obesity in Pakenham helps empower them
while ensuring that they have control over their health. My health program suggests the
improvement in the health literacy by ensuring that the Nurses and other health professionals
step up to ensure that people in Pakenham know more about their health and how to protect it
(Kemppainen et al., 2013). My health program also suggests that people should adopt protective
behaviors as well as being equipped with skills to help them properly analyze health information.
My health program also suggests that people in Pakenham should be educated on the dangers of
unhealthy food choice and lack of exercises via advertisements to help them live healthy lives
(Developing personal skills, 2015).

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Reorient health services
Reorienting health services is about the health sector focusing more on health promotion
as opposed to curative and clinical services (The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, 2016).
There is a need to reorient health services to expand and include its role in the promotion of
preventive health in Pakenham so as reduces cases such as obesity and other lifestyle diseases.
There is also a need for health services to embrace an expanded mandate that is sensitive and
respects the cultural need of people in Pakenham. My program aims at ensuring that this mandate
supports the health needs of the community members and individuals to ensure that they live
healthy lives and to Open channels between the health sector and the economic, physical,
political, social and environmental components (Johansson, Stenlund, Lundström & Weinehall,
2014).
The Ottawa charter advocates for all health sectors to ensure that they are in health
promotion activities such as helping lose weight which is a significant concern for the Pakenham
community as well as my health program (Ottawa Health Promotion Charter Revisited, 1987).
My program suggests that reorienting health services in fighting obesity can be achieved by
providing health professionals with clinical guidelines and explaining their roles in fighting
obesity. The offices of health professionals as well as the waiting rooms should be filled with
advertisements that educate people on how to prevent obesity (Lobstein & Swinburn, n.d).
Health professionals should also be required to research more on obesity and how to control it.
Professional training and education should also be offered to healthcare professionals to help
them improve their understanding of obesity and how to control it (Johansson et al., 2014).

HEALTH PROMOTION 7
Moving into the future
Holism, ecology, and caring are critical issues in ensuring the progress of health
promotion strategies (The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, 2016). Health is created by
letting individuals make their own decisions about their health and to have control over their
health, According to the Ottawa charter, it is, therefore, essential that the people in Pakenham
exercise control over their health and help them make their decisions to help them fight obesity.
A guiding principle should be that both women and men should be equally involved without
discrimination in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of health promotion activities.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Obesity is a major health challenge, especially in Pakenham. It is therefore
crucial for different stakeholders and health programs to utilize the actions of the Ottawa charter
in their programs to help ensure that there are reduced cases of obesity in the area. Nurses should
also ensure that they improve literacy levels and offer health education to help solve the problem.

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References
Bhuyan, K. K. (2016). Health promotion through self-care and community participation:
Elements of a proposed programme in the developing countries. BMC Public
Health, 4(1). doi:10.1186/1471-2458-4-11
Chiverton, P. A., Votava, K. M., & Tortoretti, D. M. (2015). The future role of nursing in health
promotion. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14621418
Developing personal skills. (2015). Health Promotion International, 1(4), 457-458.
doi:10.1093/heapro/1.4.457
Health Literacy. (2019, February 08). Retrieved from
https://www.who.int/healthpromotion/health-literacy/en/
Johansson, Stenlund, H., Lundström, L., & Weinehall, L. (2014). Reorientation to more health
promotion in health services – a study of barriers and possibilities from the perspective of
health professionals. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, 213.
doi:10.2147/jmdh.s14900
Kemppainen, V., Tossavainen, K., & Turunen, H. (2013, December). Nurses' roles in health
promotion practice: An integrative review. Retrieved from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22888155
Lobstein, T., & Swinburn, B. (n.d.). Health Promotion to Prevent Obesity. Global Perspectives
on Health Promotion Effectiveness, 125-150. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-70974-1_9
Ottawa Health Promotion Charter Revisited. (1987). Health Policy, 8(1), 138. doi:10.1016/0168-
8510(87)90136-9

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Roberto, C., Soo, J., & Pomeranz, L. (2015). Regulatory strategies for preventing obesity and
improving public health. Managing and Preventing Obesity, 277-288.
doi:10.1533/9781782420996.5.277
Supportive environments needed to encourage physical activity. (2012, October 05). Retrieved
from http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/physical-activity/
news/news/2012/10/supportive-environments-needed-to-encourage-physical-activity
The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from
https://www.who.int/healthpromotion/conferences/previous/ottawa/en/
What Is the Nurse's Role in Health Promotion? | PNW Online. (2017, September 11). Retrieved
from https://nursingonline.pnw.edu/articles/nurses-role-in-health-promotion.aspx