Obesity In Australia Essay

Canada is the largest North American continent by land area. It is also the second-largest country in the world in terms of land area. Canada is home to 35 million people. It borders the United States. Ottawa is the capital of Canada. It is also the fifth most populous city in Canada.

Obesity in America is real and profoundly alarming when you look at the major impact it has on our communities. Major health concerns like diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure cases are at an all time high. Specifically, the disparity between low-income urban inner cities in regards to obesity as compared to more upper class wealthier communities makes you take pause. This relates to my professional goals of going back into my community as an activist and organizer of issues related to my environment, like health and education.

Are Americans, where obesity is found to be a major struggle, in jeopardy with the various aspects that may cause obesity, such as poor eating habits, lack of physical activity, etc.? Poor eating habits such as eating processed foods is one reason for weight gain in children and adults. These eating habits are affordable, tasty, and an easy way out when an individual does not want to cook. Obesity is a personal issue that many have struggled with all their life. There are many risks that come along with being obese as well as ways to overcome it. In order to explain this the research report will ask: do individuals who are obese know the various health risks that come along with the constant weight gain and how to lose the weight

Childhood obesity is becoming more prevalent in the western world as statistics show that in Australia, one quarter of children are either overweight or obese. (Australian Bureau of statistics)

You don’t have a lot of money on you and you’re hungry so you grab a bite to eat at a nearby fast food restaurant. Without realizing what you are putting into your body you continue eating these inexpensive meals every night on your way home from work. Weeks turn into months and the next thing you know your cloths don’t fit the way they used you beginning to notice yourself gaining weight. Obesity among young Americans is a problem and can have serious effects if nothing is done about it.

“During the past two decades, the prevalence of obesity in children has risen greatly worldwide. Obesity in childhood causes a wide range of serious complications, and increases the risk of premature illness and death later in life, raising public-health concerns.” (Ebbeling, Pawlak & Ludwig, 2002 p.471) Currently in the Australian community and schools there is an obesity epidemic in young people with many children doing less and less physical activity then advised. “In 2007-08 the National health survey, run by the Australian Government indicated that 24.9% of children aged 5-17 years old were either overweight or obese” (Healthy Active, 2009). These figures show that children are not being properly educated about healthy

hrough historical and socio-political context, it has caused a ‘gap’ between indigenous children’s health and other parts of the country. The ‘gap’, refers to the immense health and life-expectation inequality between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. This inequality includes higher rates of infant mortality, shorter life expectancy, poorer health and lower levels of education and employment. One of the key issues and concerns in aboriginal children’s health in remote and urban areas is obesity. The 2004-2005 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (NATSIHS) found that obesity is becoming an increasing problem in the Indigenous population.(National Audit Office.

Obesity can be defined as being 20% or more over the ideal body weight for your age and height. It is a chronic disease that can lead to a number of different illnesses and other diseases . These potentially deadly illnesses include diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, coronary vascular disease, heart attack, stroke, sleep apnoea and even cancer. Obesity is becoming more common in Australia as we speak with 10% more adults being overweight or obese in Australia than in 1995. According to recent statistics 63% of adults and 1 in 4 Australian children are overweight or obese.

Obesity is best referred to as the "red alert health zone". The thing that makes obesity that dangerous is the fact that today's society does not view obesity as a serious threat. It is important to understand the fact that obesity is not just being fat or having a BMI i.e. Body Mass Index greater than that of an overweight person. Obesity is a serious problem that can fatally damage the physical as well as mental health of a person. While all of us understand how obesity can affect the physical health, a few of us know how mental health is affected due to obesity. A person suffering from obesity is termed as obese. Such a person is usually a victim of mockery and insult due to his appearance. No matter how educated we are we as a society have failed to keep in account the fact that obese people are also humans and deserve to be treated normally.

Obesity is a public health issue that has devastatingly developed into a global epidemic. According to the World Health Organization, the prevalence of overweight and obesity is dramatically increasing worldwide at an appalling and intimidating rate with more than 1.9 billion adults aged18 years and older being overweight in 2014. Out of these 1.9 billion adults being overweight, 600 million were classified obese. While the issue regarding overweight and obesity are prevalent in all countries, the National Health and Medical Research Council stated that Australia’s obesity levels have been developing faster than any countries in the world over the past thirty years. Although obesity may have been primarily considered as a personal concern three decades ago; it is overwhelmingly a societal concern today in Australia. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare have measured that in 2011 and 2012, around 63% of Australian adults had the characteristics of being overweight and corpulence. That is over a quarter of the adult population in Australia being obese.

The United States of America leads the world as the country with the highest obesity rate. Obesity is a life threatening condition and a prerequisite for many other conditions such as diabetes. Along with causing life threatening conditions obesity can cause day to day problems such as lack of energy and poor mental performance. Both of these day to day problems brought on by obesity and poor health in general affect many students in school and adults in the workplace, causing low productivity and low moral in both students and employees. It is important for healthy habits, such as a healthy diet regular exercise, to be encouraged and required by teachers and employers through out the U.S to ensure every student and employee is working at their personal maximum performance.

It has been found that of the total number of elderly Australians aged 65 years hospitalized, one third are as also malnourished. Once discharged their health often is degraded due to repercurrsions of nutrient deficient body. However the elders living in community, only ten percent were found to be malnourished.

The issue I have been exploring in my blog is childhood overweight and obesity. Overweight and obesity can be defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health (World Health Organisation [WHO], 2006). BMI is a widely accepted measure used to determine overweight and obesity in children and adolescents. According to the Australian Government Department of Health website, BMI is determined by comparing calculated (weight/ height2) against the relevant age and sex of the child/adolescent (Department of Health, 2009). Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Growth Charts, often used in health care settings, are used to determine the corresponding BMI-for-age and sex percentile.

The prevalence of obesity in England rose from 14.9% to 25.6% between 1993 and 2014 and the trend is still increasing (Public Health England [PHE], 2016a). In addition, the World Health Organization [WHO] (2016a) recognise obesity as a public health issue. Public health aims to help the population to stay healthy and protect them from health threats (Department of Health [DH], 2016a). Furthermore, public health aims to prevent disease, prolong life and promote health through changes within society (Detels, Gulliford, Abdool Karim & Chuan Tan, 2015).

Overweight and obesity is the most significant health issue facing Australians in 2017. Not only have the rates been on the rise in Australia over the past years, but as a consequence, so has the cost to the country. Obesity and overweight are major risk factors impacting on many other health issues such as cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, some cancers, to name a few. The link with other serious health disorders contributes greatly to the significance of overweight and obesity as a major health challenge in Australia today. Overweight and Obesity as defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) is an ‘abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health’.