Nsw's Obesity Strategy

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines obesity as ‘abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health’. (1) A general measure used to monitor obesity is the body mass index (BMI). A person with a BMI of 25+ is considered overweight and 30+ is obese. Between 2011 – 2012 62.8% of Australians adults, aged 18+ were overweight or obese, with 27.5% of the cases being obese. This has increased by 6.5% since 1995. (2) The obesity epidemic in Australia needs to be addressed urgently as it is a precursor to most preventable lifestyle diseases and a BMI over 25 is the second highest contributor to burden of disease in this country. (3) According to WHO, worldwide the rate of obesity has doubled from 1980-2014. (4) In 2014-2015,

Health promotion allows people to gain their control with health improvement. As well as it is an Involvement of the whole populations framework in their daily lives. In addition, activities are prepared to promote health and to prevent health rather than concentrating on specific diseases where people are under threat.

An exploration of a contemporary public health issue using epidemiology. To appraise the chosen health promotion intervention in relation to the public health issue, designed to improve health and wellbeing.

Obesity is a widely known and recorded problem in Australia (Heading, 2008). It affects over 60% of the adult population (National Health and Medical Research Council [NHMRC], 2013). This is a frightening statistic and sadly it isn’t restricted to adults. Nearly 25% of Australia’s children and adolescent population is also affected by obesity (Moir, 2013; NHMRC, 2014; Obesity Australia, 2013).

The obesity epidemic is rapidly advancing in the U.S., leading to physical and mental health problems as well as having financial impacts. Although there are existing federal programs and policies that address the obesity problem, these policies do not seem to account for the urgency of the current situation. It is essential to examine new policy strategies to combat the growing threat of obesity. Policy strategies explored in this paper include implementation of federal subsidization of healthy meals and taxation on fast food.

Health promotion has emerged in the last decade as an important force to improve both quality and quantity of people’s lives. Sometimes termed ‘the new public health’ it seeks to support and encourage a participative social movement that enables individuals and communities to take control over their own health. (Bunton,R & Macdonald,G 1992)

Health promotion is now increasingly as a critical role of public health and is the process of improving the wellbeing of general population via facilitating people to increase control over their health. It also attempts to use a wide range of interventions for changing the health behavior of individuals as well as the environment that influence their health (World Health Organization, 2005).

Health is the state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (from WHO, 1946, in Park, 2005) and Health Promotion has been defined as an enterprise involving the development over time, in individuals and communities, of basic and positive states of and conditions for physical, mental and social health (Raeburn and Rootman, 1998, p.11). This idea of health promotion has been borne out of acceptance of the limitations of curative medicine and therefore, the need to 'refocus upstream' (Kemm and Close, 1995, p.7). And it is these principles we have adopted in the development

A third strength of this health campaign is that instead of targeting the individuals, it targets the local authorities who have the ability to change factors which contribute to the increasing number of obesity cases. Local authorities are able to change things such as housing, transport and health services in the area to support the needs of the area’s population. This public health campaign also has a weakness which might impact a government’s influence on tackling obesity. The campaign is rather lengthy, often focussing on obesity’s effect on the individual rather than the wider community. As this health campaign is aimed towards local authorities, lack of information detailing how the wider community could be effected by obesity might deter local authorities from investing in measures to tackle obesity. To improve this, reducing the amount of information on how obesity affects the individual and more about how it could impact the wider community. As this health campaign has recently been released, in 2015, sufficient statistics determining whether this health campaign has influenced trends within the

Obesity is a growing problem not only in adults in the UK but also young adults. Public

As weight related health issues rises in Australia so does the cost to continue to provide and sustain accessible health care and government subsidies to effectively deal with the compounding comorbid health issues. A challenge for the health care system is relieving the impact felt by health care system, with the increase in weight-related illness and costs this will become more difficult. The total estimated cost resulting from being overweight or obese in 2008, was $58.2 billion, the Federal Government covered 34.3% of these health care costs resulting from weight-related medical expenses, the State Government covered 5.1%, the rest was covered by individuals (29.4%), family and friends (19.2%) and society (11.8%) (Access Economics, 2008), this cost increases as the trend increases and will soon be difficult to sustain. Individuals who are overweight or obese have been linked to longer hospital stays, an increase in medical treatments, are more likely to be transferred between hospitals and to die from complications (Hauck & Hollingworth, 2008). Longer hospital stays and an increase in being treated medically place an increased cost on the health system to treat these individuals. If an individual loses weight the average medical costs is shown to decreases as well (Colagiuri et al., 2010), showing potential cost benefits for treating overweight or obese

To me personally making resolutions and keeping those resolutions actively by setting up realist goals works better .changing diet ,exercise and lifestyles all belongs to this week topic .Once the needs are identified as a health care provider we could support by motivation, education , providing resources materials and by community participation and more over model for the family and community. We can be model by eating smart and by empowering, embracing energizing, protecting and refreshing ourselves. Those could be achieved by eating lower saturated fat ,cholesterol and salty foods add more veggies and fruits to your diet ,keep up the correct BMI, know your lab results and numbers and stay physically active .By definition Health promotion

Obesity is a traditionally first world health problem that is a growing concern throughout the world because of its negative effects on public health as well as the wider economy.

“Approximately two-thirds of the Australian adult population is overweight or obese according to the most recent Australian Health Survey.” “This proportion continues to increase, with massive implications for the burden of chronic disease on individuals and the economy.”

The WHO’s definition of health has become the most commonly used and states that health promotion is the method of enabling people to increase their own control over their health and also to be able to improve it. DEF!!!!!!!!!. Health promotion can take place in many different environments and settings such as the community. The term community is defined by Wood and Judikus (2002) as being wherever the member of any particular group, be it small or large, live together in a way in which they share the basic conditions of common everyday life. Community based health promotion programmes are the most common forms of health promotion and are increasing in recognition all the time as well as becoming an intervention and seen as an effective, wider scale educational health initiative by governments as a whole. A community led approach on health functions by dealing with population health problems of variation and in application to more personal troubles which grow from individual lifestyle factors and behavioural patterns. Community based health development is defined by the CIHRU (1987) as “a process by which a community defines its own health needs, considers how these needs can be