PUBH630: Reflective Essay on Health Determinants and Obesity Crisis

This essay reflects on the multifaceted issue of obesity and its connection to various health determinants. It highlights the global rise in obesity rates, linking it to lifestyle choices and social factors. The role of Environmental Health Officers in Melbourne is emphasized, along with the importance of considering stakeholder recommendations. The reflection extends to the author's skill development and future application of knowledge in public health practice, addressing competency standards. It covers key health determinants such as genetics, social environment, and access to resources, explaining how these factors contribute to health disparities. The impact of environmental factors like air pollution and substandard housing on health is also examined. Ultimately, the essay demonstrates how the author's learning will inform their future work in public health, including implementing evidence-based practices and addressing ethical considerations.

Obesity and increasing rate of being overweight among the people from all over the
world is an ongoing health crisis. Various public health issues are associated with it as well.
A worldwide debate is going on regarding the reason behind such health crisis and individual
life-style choices and other social factors are making obesity a concern for the whole society.
Apart from these, people are experiencing many health issues due to environmental and
social hazards. In this regard, the role of Environmental Health Officers is highly significant
in the city of Melbourne. Recommendations from other stakeholders are also important. Here,
in this paper I am going to reflect how this learning relates and extends my skills and
knowledge. At the same time, I will also how it will help in future in order to meet relevant
competency standard in future practice.
According to World Health Organization (WHO), obesity is one of the chronic
diseases and it is prevalent in both developed as well as developing countries (Brennan-Olsen
et al., 2018). It is generally caused when the energy intake is quite higher than the amount of
energy used by the body. In certain population, the prevalence of obesity might be high when
compared to other populations due to biological, environmental, and cultural factors. As per
the statistics on obesity, the prevalence of obesity among adults is increasing and the learning
from the content also extends the knowledge regarding the prevalence statistics of obesity
among children and adults. Various determinants are there that leads to the occurrence of
obesity and that include genetic factors, social factors, environmental factors, lifestyle
preferences, and others (Watts et al., 2015). The learning enhanced my skill about the ways
of preventing obesity among people and in order to prevent obesity, physical activity and
dietary management is most effective (Bauman et al., 2012). The content also discusses about
the interventions to prevent obesity. I learned the effective invention strategies that can be
helpful in preventing obesity from the early childhood and schools can be involved in these
intervention approaches (Rani & Sathiyasekaran, 2013). Apart from this, the content assisted

to have a deep insight in the key health determinants. Genetics, body structure as well as
function. The health determinants are responsible for the difference in health status among
the people from the same ecology. Initially I had idea about the difference in health status but
the actual reason behind such dissimilarity was not clearly known to me and learning from
this content I learned that social determinants like poverty or lack of education can impact the
health and living standard of people. However, reducing the cost of education and increasing
opportunity for sufficient employment can be helpful in reducing the inconveniences from
such determinants. Even, the learning helped me to think from deep and I came to know that
people living in over-crowded environment, where the environment is highly congested are
more likely to suffer from several health issues than others. The content clearly discussed the
health issues associated with over-crowding and poor development of houses where it is
impossible to get fresh air from the environment (Giles-Corti et al., 2016). The substandard
housing development and poor ventilation status of houses can cause various serious health
issues among the people. Through the learning from this content I enhanced my knowledge
about the diseases caused by excessive air pollution and among them, the most common
disease occur due to respiratory issues (Chen, Wan, Yang & Zou, 2015). Depending upon
the dose of the contaminants, the health impacts caused on human being are either for long
term or for short term. Also, air pollution can cause cardiovascular dysfunction as well as
neuropsychiatric complications among the human beings which were unknown to me
(Guillory, Clayton, Herndon & Finnerty, 2016). Learning from this content also helped me to
know that cold in indoor conditions might cause severe health issues as too cold as well as
too hot temperatures always contribute to the occurrence of many adverse effects on the
human health. Also, poor ventilation can allow pests to stay inside the houses which may
cause various health issues. Therefore, this learning opened my eyes in various prospects of
health hazards and its determinants.

The knowledge I gained from this unit will help me in future while working in public
health practice. I came to know about the statistics on obesity as well as other health hazards
and the health determinants will be helpful to implement an evidence-based practice in my
working settings. The ethical and political debates regarding the social as well as behavioural
determinants will assist me to work maintaining the ethics in the practice. Also, I will acquire
the approaches to identify the key health determinants and the effective interventions in this
regard, while working as a professional in public health settings. I will also assess the health
of the environment in order to manage and control specific environmental health issues. I will
look for governmental support in this regard. Also, I will always implement the strategies I
learned in this unit while working in public health settings.

References
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