Obesity : A Problem Facing Healthcare Professionals

The Health Belief Model is commonly used for health promotion and health education. Its’ underlying concept is that health behavior is explained by perception of the disease and the strategies available to lower its occurrence. There are four perceptions of the HBM, which are perceived seriousness, perceived benefit, perceived susceptibility and perceived barriers. In addition to that, more constructs are added to health belief model that includes motivating factor, cues to action and self-efficacy. Each of these constructs in combination or individually, could be used to determine health behavior. The HBM also provides guidelines for the program development allowing planners to address reasons for non-compliance with recommended health action. The health belief model is a process used to promote healthy behavior among individuals who may be at risk of developing adverse health outcomes. A person must gauge their perceptions of severity and susceptibility of developing a disease. Then it is essential to feel vulnerable by these perceptions. Environmental factors can play a role as well as cues to action such as media, and close friends. In order to determine that taking action will be meaningful, the benefits to change must be weighed, against the barriers to change behavior (Green & Murphy, 2014).

The healthy belief method was demonstrated with this study. The study demonstrated that the impact of health beliefs on behavior showed a direct relationship between health

Obesity is an increasing epidemic affecting the United States in an alarming and negative way. In the past centuries it was rare for Americans to be obese. Today they’re numerous factors contributing to the epidemic but they can be reversed with awareness of the severity of the issue, it’s affect on health, and a willingness to make changes in their daily life.

The Health Belief Model (HBM) was developed by a group of social psychologists at the U.S. Public Health Service in the 1950s in an attempt to understand “the widespread failure of people to participate in programs to prevent and detect disease.” It was later applied to patient responses to symptoms and to compliance with prescribed medical regimens (Champion, Stretcher, & Janz, 2002, p. 46).

Obesity has grown so much it can now be said to have replaced smoking as the number one preventable cause of diseases in America. Even though the obese have to be responsible when deciding what and how much to eat, society is what not only created obesity but also discriminates against them. The media, food market, and the rapidly advancing technology are all factors that influence not only the increase in obesity rates, but also the psychological status of the obese.

The Health Belief Model (HBM) is a model that attempts to explain and predict health behaviors (Glanz et al, 2008). This model focuses on the attitudes and beliefs of individuals. The Health Belief Model motivates people to take action. The HBM is based on the understanding that a person will take a health-related action using six key constructs: perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, and perceived barriers, cues to action, and self-efficacy (Glanz et al, 2008).

The concept behind the Health Belief Model is to motivate/encourage people to take positive actions that will lead them towards making better decisions (ReCAPP, NEED DATE). There are four constructs (P’s) followed by two concepts in the Health Belief Model which include the following: Perceived Susceptibility, Perceived Severity, Perceived benefits, Perceived barriers, cues to action, and self-efficacy (Glanz, Rimer, Viswanath, 2008).

There are many criticisms of the Health Belief Model in its effectiveness of predicting and changing health behaviours. A review commissioned by NICE (2006), could not find any substantial evidence that planned interventions to change health behaviours, using this model, were successful and found it simplistic in its’ design. It discussed the fact that the Health Belief Model relied on people acting rationally; it did not fully take into account how their demographic and socio-economic status may influence their decisions and how their emotional and subconscious state can have an impact on their

Being obese is a tremendous issue in the United States . According to the book the “Obesity: Cultural and BioCultural Perspectives”by Alexandra A.Brewis, there is an assessment mentioned in the book that was made by the “World Health Organization”. The assessment mentions that “ one third of the people are now overweight or obese . Within two decades , if the current trend continue, the number will be more than two-thirds”.(Brewis 1)

Both the health belief model (HBM) and theories of reasoned action/planned behavior (TRA/TPB) are two model that has their root from psychology. Both models rely on social cognition as a mechanism to change individuals’ behaviors. Opponent criticizes the models for being unable to target social influence outside of an individual and overlook difference between target audiences.

Conner and Norman, 1995 describe the health belief model as ‘the oldest and most widely used model in health psychology’. It originated in the 50’s and was developed further by Hochbaum, Rosenstock and Kegals throughout the 1980’s for health education programmes and to predict different health behaviours and responses to treatments. The four terms that are the basis for the HBM are perceived susceptibility, perceived barriers, perceived severity and perceived benefits. The behaviour of the individual depends on their belief that they are susceptible to a health problem, how serious they deem it to be, whether they think that treatment will benefit them and if there are barriers that may get in the way.

The Health Belief Model (HBM) is one of the first theories of health behavior. It was developed in the 1950s by social psychologists in the U.S. Public Health Services to better understand the widespread failure of tuberculosis screening programs. Today it continues to be one of the most widely used theories. Research studies use it to explain and predict health behaviors seen in individuals. There is a broad range of health behaviors and subject populations that it is applied in. The concepts in the model involve perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, cues to action, and self-efficacy. Focusing on the attitudes and beliefs of individuals being studied create an understanding of their

Health belief model was one of the first and most widely recognized theories of health behavior. (Butts & Rich, 2011). This theory was formulated in an attempt to predict health behaviors by focusing on the attitude and beliefs of individuals. It is aimed to determine the likelihood of an individual to participate in health-promotion and disease prevention programs. (Kozier & Erb, 2011). This theory postulated that if a patient is well- motivated, there is a possibility that he will participate in these activities. Motivation can be derived by the individual's perceptions towards his condition. According to Becker (1974), individual perceptions include patient's perceived susceptibility, perceived seriousness of the disease and perceived threat.

Obesity is a growing disease within our ever quickening, largely sedentary society. The American Obesity Treatment Organization reported the current obesity problem in the US as 72 million people dealing with this disease and associated risk factors. Obesity is a disease that affects both adults and children. The CDC lists related risk factors of this disease as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, Type-2 diabetes, sleep apnea, and stroke ("Adult Obesity Facts"). Obesity is highly prevalent in Florida with rates as high as 25-30% (“Obesity Prevalence Maps”). As a nation, the goal set by Healthy People 2020 is to reduce the rate of obesity to less than 15% and as the data and statistics clearly show Florida is nowhere

Obesity is classified as one of the extremely common and serious public health problems in the world. Overweight and obesity are the fifth leading global risks of mortality in the world (World Health Organization, 2009). Furthermore, they are one of the major factors of for a number of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer (World Health Organization, 2005). According to NHS UK, obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more for adults, and the UK 1990 growth reference curves are used to define obesity for Children (Cole TJ, Freeman JV, Preece MA, 1995). The growing challenge of obesity of Europe countries is remarkable among Asian countries .In 2008, 1.4 billion adults (35%) aged 20 and over were overweight and 500 million were obese (11%). More than 40 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2012(World Health Organization, 2014). That is the global obesity situation. Furthermore, the obesity problem in the UK is not optimistic, the UK has the highest obesity rates among Europe countries, and this trend has strikingly increased over the recent years to the point where more than 20% of the population are now obese. (University of Birmingham, 2014) However, the obesity situation in Singapore is more worrisome. In 2010, 40% adults aged 18 to 69 were overweight and 10% were obese which is more than double the level seen in 1992. (Ministry of Health Singapore, 2010) This essay will