Lynwood Community Reflection

My goal in the area of health is to prevent the spread of illness, keep the environment as clean as possible, and follow sound nutrition and fitness policies to help children and families live a healthy lifestyle. In group care, it can sometimes be hard to control the spread of germs and disease, so I follow proper hand washing, sanitation, diapering, and food preparation guidelines at all times. I also follow my center’s sick policy by informing families about communicable diseases, observing children closely, and sending sick children home right away. I also prepare my snack menu carefully by following the food pyramid, ensuring at least two food groups, and strictly limiting processed and sugary foods. I am also proactive about health in fitness in my classroom, as I teach children about making good choices and how to lead a fun and active lifestyle. We have sports, creative movement or outdoor play several times each day to stay active. We also inform families of our health and fitness goals so they can support the goal of a healthy active lifestyle.

This year 76 million Baby Boomers in America are entering their fifties and sixties, yet this generation is not the only one suffering from diseases derived from an unhealthy diet. Advances in medicine have continued to preserve lives, but still researchers have not found a miracle that fully sustains the quality of everyday life. Overcrowding and neglect is the fate of patients seeking long-term medical attention if individuals continue to lack nutritional knowledge, and depend on the care of others to survive. Heart disease and diabetes type two are factors that lead to a life of dependency and make a significant contribution to the large population needing medical care. These specific diseases take years to develop and can last a life time. Acting to prevent them includes consuming an adequate diet and managing an active lifestyle. Prolonging physical health with the use of nutrition and ecercise can insure a longer, happier life as well as, alleviate the need for medical assistance for daily activities for those with diabetes and heart disease.

My short-term goals are to enhance my knowledge of medical nutrition therapy, to gain experiences in all aspects of the dietetic field especially in clinical nutrition setting, and to become an RD. My long-term career goals are to become Certified Diabetes Educator, to engage and serve in community nutrition, and to promote wellness and preventive health care for socio-economically and culturally fragile populations. The U.S. population has become increasingly diverse in ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, I believe that providing patient-centered education with respect on the differences of cultural, religious, and dietary practices are the keys to becoming a successful educator in nutrition counseling and education.

Finkelman, A. (2013) Health promotion, Disease Prevention, and Illness: A community Perspective.. In Professional Nursing Concepts (Second ed., pp 201-227). Burlington: Jones & Bartlet Learning.

Health care providers can overcome differing points of view regarding health promotion and disease prevention by creating a learning environment built on mutual trust, respect and acceptance. The goal is to provide education that is built upon the individual or group strengths that empower and engage the group/individual to be an active participant. It should encourage decision-making that positively affects lifestyle and health behavior changes.

However, this can be hard to promote if a community such as Germantown experiences such health disparities that puts them at risk for chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, and obesity, all of which could be preventable. Therefore, as nurses we can intervene and plan ways to improve the health of Germantown in the most realistic way possible. The nursing intervention to help try and eliminate the health disparity of knowledge deficit related to nutritious foods primarily focuses on education, as it is a primary means of impacting change. Our intervention would be implemented through an educational program at multiple community locations such as school or churches. The program would consist of weekly meetings discussing the characteristics of a healthy diet, how to read food labels correctly, picking the right food choices based on the options available in the community, and informing the participants about the impacts nutrition has on health such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Each session would encompass pre-briefing followed by demonstration of healthy food recipes and then a debriefing to reiterate the importance of that session. Through education, we hope to impact more people of Germantown to use the public transportation to shop at the local farmer's market or supermarkets and have a positive change in their health. Therefore, there shall be a decreased incidence in obesity, hypertension, and diabetes and increase in the community’s knowledge about obtaining nutritional

• Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Stroke is

The obesity epidemic is at an all-time high as evidenced by the fact that there are more overweight and obese people than those of healthy weight in the U.S. today. Many political, medical and surgical interventions have proven to be largely unsuccessful. There has only been marginal success with government led nutritional initiatives such as First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign. The key to ending this obesity epidemic lies within health promotion. Nurses possess the essential skills and training developed from nursing practice to use health promotion and preventative health care to target at risk clients and communities before obesity develops. Through teaching, especially children what foods they should eat and the right portion size we can save the next generation from an obesity epidemic.

Patient prevention and education should start in the primary care setting where information could be shared with the patient and their love ones. Patient education can be initiated by the primary care provider and the ancillary staff. Initiating this fundamental exchange of information can establish a knowledge base for health promotion behaviors and increase self-management skills that can improve the patient quality of life (Cha et al., 2012).

Upon reviewing the community vitality data I came to the conclusion that the health problem that a health education program would be most appropriate to address would be childhood nutritional health and fitness. I came to this conclusion after careful data analysis. Of the county’s adults (18+) 77% ate less than five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, this percentage is so high likely because of attitudes and habits these adults picked up when they were children. The second largest age demographic in the county is children aged 10 to 17 are overweight, six percent more than the state average, 88% of children age 10 to 17 are not meeting daily targets for fruit and vegetable consumption and 30% age 10 to 17 watch 3 or

This past summer, I had the wonderful opportunity to start volunteering at the AltaMed Pediatric Clinic located inside of Children's Hospital Los Angeles here in Hollywood, CA. Parents struggling with overweight or obese children have the opportunity to enroll their whole family in the BodyWorks nutrition education program for 7 weeks, that focuses on various nutrition and wellness topics. The goal of the program is to encourage children and their parents to assess their environment, health and lifestyle choices while defining small weekly goals that will move them towards improved health. Families are encouraged to share their weekly goals and monitor their process to be able to provide them with the necessary support. Moreover, children realize that they are not alone in their struggle to lose weight and regain the confidence they need to succeed.Working together with the program’s multidisciplinary team of doctors, medical assistants, a dietitian and occupational therapist, I have

Working as a RN for the surgical services department I have witnessed the effects on health when individuals among the population with lack of health promotion. Furthermore, taking the course “Health promotion in nursing” for my Bachelors of Science in nursing (BSN) degree I have learned the global issues with health promotion and prevention. I have gained knowledge for my role in teaching families about good health prevention at every level; primary, secondary, and tertiary preventions. I have learned the benefits of effective communication, teamwork, and collaboration of care necessary for patients return to healthy status. For example, I have development an understanding for protective factors related to various age groups across

As a physician in the future, I hope to educate and train competent physicians of the highest ideals in the ways of prevention, diagnoses and treatment. The statement “prevention is better than cure” goes without saying. By promoting healthy eating habits and lifestyle changes, we can decrease the incidences of cardiovascular diseases and Diabetes. According to dailymail.com, The US has the highest rate of diabetes among all developed countries across the world~ 30 million people. The incidence of Type II diabetes can be decreased by decreasing fast food intake and sedentary lifestyle. Approximately 50 million Americans eat out every day with an estimated $1,200 spent on fast food each year. If we funded educational preventative programs that taught people on healthy habits, then we could decrease the incidences of diabetes, Heart attack, stroke. We could also decrease the amount of money being paid out by Medicaid and Medicare yearly as we funnel that money into other programs. This would in turn lead to a decrease in incidences, hospitalizations and mortality rates.

As healthcare providers, we often include health promotion and risk reduction in our patient education. However, there are different approaches when teaching a patient with chronic illness compared to a healthy person. The focus for a healthy person is encouraging them to keep on adopting healthy behavioral lifestyle, such as eating healthy nutritional diet, exercise, avoid smoking, and alcohol use, and to utilize medical screenings and immunization for disease prevention (Mauk, 2014). On the other hand, the focus for a person with chronic illness is different because we have to consider the person’s illness when providing education. For example, teaching a patient with type 2 diabetes about healthy nutritional diet, we have to include not

Every individual deserves to receive compassionate, safe and quality care regardless of race, age, gender or income. The focus on patient centered care is essential in every community. Every patient and family member deserves equal treatment. The Community Health Field Experience course work was an eye opening experience, the research and each interview I experience. The education of the lower income individuals is lacking, education is essential, every community member should receive the educational information needed in preventative medicine not only for my topic of obesity but in healthcare in general. Education should start in childhood and continue through-out life. The Community Health and Population Field course enabled me to look