Applying Systems Thinking: Obesity in Australia - PUBH6003 Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of obesity in Australia, identifying it as a leading public health concern. It delves into the issue by defining the public health challenges, including the rising rates of obesity and its associated risk factors such as genetics, physical inactivity and psychological factors, and the high economic costs. The report then explores the roles of various stakeholders, including public health regulators, policymakers, and health professionals, in addressing the issue. It also highlights the barriers to implementing a systematic approach, such as lack of health professionals and infrastructure, and ethical concerns. The report suggests strategies for applying a systems thinking approach, such as providing training and support to health professionals and amending policies. The conclusion emphasizes the need for a systematic approach involving stakeholders and appropriate infrastructure to combat obesity.

Running head: OBESITY IN AUSTRALIA
OBESITY IN AUSTRALIA
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Introduction:
The effect of overweight and obesity has been leading health concern in Australia which
facilitates the growth of cardiovascular disease, diabetes. In this paper, the chosen public health
concern is obesity. Black, Hughes and Jones (2018), reported that amongst Australian adults
one in four were obese in 2009 , indicated that one-third of the total Australian population being
overweight. Hence, this paper will provide a report addressing public health issues, role of
stakeholders, barriers of systematic thinking and suggestions in the following paragraphs.
Define public health issues:
Over the last decade, a steady shift has been observed in the Australian population
towards high body mass index, which is facilitated by the change in weight of the body. In
2014- 2015, more than one out of four adults in Australia were obese compared to 2009,
indicating a rapid increase in obesity in Australia (Veitch et al., 2015). More than two million
Australian men were obese, accounting for 28% of all male of the Australian population over 18
years. While 28% of the male in Australia was overweight, approximately 48% of the male in
the Australian population were overweight. Considering the obesity rate of Aboriginals, 66% of
the indigenous Australian are obese, indicating the rate of obesity is high in Torres Strait Island
(Hardy et al., 2017). The common risk factors of obesity include Genetics, medication, physical
inactivity, frequency of eating, medications and smoking, psychological factors (Hayes et al.,
2017). Avsar, Ham, and Tannous (2017) suggested that excessive body facilitate high
economic cost which includes loss of productivity and care costs of Australian, approximately
60 billion dollars per year. Hence, in order to reduce the global burden of disease and high
prevalence of obesity, systems thinking approach should be taken involving different
stakeholders.

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Figure: Obesity
Source: (Hardy et al., 2017)
Role of stakeholders in addressing the issue:
In public health issues, stakeholders are usually a crucial part of the sector whose
involvement and actions determine the successful address of certain issues. In the current
context, the commercial drivers of the epidemic are so influential that obesity can be defined as
the robust sign of success such as consumers are more inclined to buy more unhealthy foods,
energy-saving cars and less inclined towards the physical activity (Jancey et al., 2019). In this
case, policies, law, and regulations are often required to change for improving social and
environmental changes which will have e sustainable impact on reducing obesity. There is a
range of potential stakeholders who play a crucial role in addressing the issues associated with

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obesity. These stakeholders include public health regulators, policymakers, health
professionals, consumer groups and the food and beverages, restaurant industries (Vidgen et al.,
2018). The public health regulators in Department of Health and Human Services plays role in
the protecting and promoting the health of the public and they play this role by conducting
serves, health promotion programs and implementing different legislation to control the issue.
The policymakers play crucial role in amending policies associated with obesity such as
implementing “healthy eating active living” policy, imposing high taxes in the unhealthy junk
and canned food, amending policies in health care for improving the frequency of screening and
improving professional practice (Alfadda et al., 2016). They can provide access to the health
care services to the population from low social demographics status. The role of health
professionals, in this case, is to provide health literary to the patients and to the community for
reducing unhealthy eating habits and replacing it with nutritious food (Vamos et al., 2016). The
restaurants and other industries can involve in the obesity reduction initiatives by replacing the
unhealthy foods and beverages with nutritious food and healthy drinks. It will reduce the high
prevalence of obesity, encourage people to eat healthy eating and improve their involvement in
physical activity.
Barriers to implementing a systematic approach to reduce obesity:
Roberto et al. (2015), highlighted that an array of obstacles present in implementing the
systematic approach in reducing obesity. Kelleher et al. (2017), highlighted that lack of
adequate health professionals hinders the reduction as a significant number of health care
professionals prescribes medications which promote obesity. The second obstacle is lack of
support and encouragement in the health care professionals regarding consideration of
psychosocial factors of the patients (Meyer et al., 2016). The third factor is the stringent policy

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of the health care sectors and public health. The fourth factor is the lack of appropriate
infrastructure to implement systematic thinking. The fourth infrastructure is ethical issues
regarding breaching autonomy of the patients since a significant number of patients feel offended
to communicate regarding their social and environmental factors, hindering the implementation
of systems thinking approach (van Nassau et al., 2015). The fifth factor is the lack of adequate
health care access to the individuals, indicating hindrance in inter-sectoral approach
Figure: Obesity
Source: (Hardy et al., 2017)
Suggestions:
In this current context, systems thinking approach can be applied with the assistance of
various strategies. The first strategy is to provide literacy and the training to the health

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professionals, especially nurses so that they can consider the social economic and political
factors while caring for patients (Meyer et al., 2016). In order to implement intersectoral and
systematic approaches for addressing the issue, professionals are mandatory to provide with
support and encouragement so that they consider the surrounding factors of the patients while
treating patients. The health professionals are required to provide with resources and appropriate
infrastructure for applying their systematic thinking approach while treating patients with obesity
(Vamos et al., 2016). Policy makers are required to amend the policies towards less stringent
policies which will provide the scope of the applying systematic thinking approach in this issue.
Conclusion:
Thus it can be concluded that obesity is one of the leading cause of global burden of
disease and over the last decade, a steady shift has been observed in the Australian population
towards the high body mass index. Hence, in order to address the issue, the systematic thinking
approach is required to implement where stakeholders are required to involve. The only way of
supporting this thinking is to provide appropriate literacy and infrastructure.

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