Obesity In Australia Today

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)

A simple strategy such as losing five kilograms has the potential to result in 27% to 34% fewer cardiovascular related hospital admissions and deaths over the next twenty years. Obesity plays a major role in todays and the future societies health and health care system. Action needs to take place in order to reduce the effects of this health issue. A few examples of this are: Creating more of an awareness of the effects obesity has on individuals and the community can help reduce the growth of this health issue. Educating people and children more on how to create a healthy lifestyle including healthy eating and exercise will reduce obesity greatly and describing practical strategies that would enable Australian to loose weight and keep the weight down will also have a positive impact on society.

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 the 21st centuries plaque. It is a disease spreading at a rapid rate, taking over our society; affecting us from the grass roots up. Obesity, defined as excess fat/weight causing health issues is a multifactorial issue that needs to be addresses. There are too many consequences presented by the disease, both physical and mental to allow it the continual power to destroy the lives of many, too many Australians. The alarming rate at which this disease is spreading must become a topic of conversation for our whole society. Change needs to be seen at every level.

Childhood obesity is an alarming issue in Australia, and there is not only a rapid national epidemic in Australia and around the world. Obese children are likely to develop detrimental problems in their health and have enduring social, health and economic effects that permeate throughout adulthood. Early detection and management of childhood obesity are critical in preventing obesity during adulthood, considering it is a significant contributor to the adulthood epidemic. Thus, there are several social determinants of health that directly impact childhood obesity. It is crucial to understand the link between social determinants of health and childhood obesity to gather appropriate intervention and prevention ways to decrease the detrimental

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.

In our group assessment we all decided to research obesity and the affects it is having on the Australian population. This subject was good for me, I had already researched the topic before, this allowed me to really get a deeper understanding of the topic and find a way to show how much of problem for generations to deal with. Obesity is a growing problem in Australia with almost 63% of all Australians being obese and 10% more people overweight than in 1995.

In Australia, obesity has a substantial prevalence in the population. In 2014.15, 63.4% of Australians aged 18 and over were overweight or obese, which equates to approximately 11.2 million people. Of these 63.4%, 35.5% were overweight (6.3 million people), and 27.9% (4.9 million people) were obese (1). These statistics are 10% higher than in 1995, when approximately 53% of Australians were either overweight or obese (2).

Obesity is categorised under the non-communicable diseases class (WHO, 2017). The National Health Priority Area initiated by Australian government has selected obesity as their main focus with the objectives to lower the burden of disease on the Australian community. Furthermore, obesity is linked with cardiovascular disease, hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea, type 2 diabetes, mental health, cancer, quality of life and mortality. It is therefore very important to empower the community by providing education on these risk factors to persuade people diagnosed with obesity of the benefits of managing their health and improving their quality of life. This essay will focus on obesity associated with cardiovascular diseases education in Australian

Obesity is best referred to as the "red alert health zone". World health Organization (WHO 2012) defines obesity as "abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health". Body mass index (weight/height2) is a measure that determines overweight and obesity. The reports shows that BMI greater or equal to 25 comes under the category of overweight, whereas, if BMI is greater than or equal to 30 then the person is categorized as obese. Obesity is known to be the fifth most leading risk as a cause of death worldwide. An increase in high fat and salt and low intake of vitamins and minerals results in obesity. Lack of sufficient physical activity also causes obesity in many people.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Australian Health Survey (2011-12) found that 63% of Australian adults and 25% of Australian children were overweight or obese. The main cause of overweight and obesity, as stated by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2016), can be attributed to the lack of balance between physical exercise and energy intake. Due to the high amount of energy, and lack of essential nutrients, sugar is a key factor in excess glucose found in the body. The World Health Organisation (2016) states that an increase in storage in the form of fat results from over-consumption of sugar; leading to the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes mellitus. Type 2 diabetes mellitus requires lifestyle modification or medication to manage insulin resistance and blood glucose levels. A high consumption of sugars without expending excess energy can therefore result in serious diseases that can greatly affect one’s lifestyle. Some may find it hard to manage how much sugar they consume however, due to the addictive properties it

New Zealand is said to be one of the most obese countries in relation to the size of the population. With the statistics increasing as time goes on, it has become a real issue within society that is causing the government and health boards to seriously consider and address the problem through health promotion. Obesity could be defined as "an excessively high amount of body fat (also known as adipose tissue) in relation to lean body mass" [1] and there is now evidence to prove that obese children and adults are at a great risk of suffering from short and long-term health issues. To contradict, however, we identify this health issue through the use of a 'Body Mass Index ' (BMI), which doesn 't necessarily calculate an excessively high amount of body fat in relation to Body Mass, but rather it measures weight adjusted for height, and calculated through the dividing of weight in kilograms by height in meters squared (However, this is sometimes unreliable due to muscle often not being taken into consideration). It is then based off this calculation that one can discover if they are apparently obese-otherwise the alternative option (and most reliable), is to see a doctor. However, though it is becoming a greater issue within New Zealand society, too often there has been a lack of education or a form of ignorance in relation to this health issue, in which is causing less awareness throughout society. This has meant that in light of this, there are generally two arguments in

The literature review involved collating information about the prevalence of overweight and obesity in Australian adults, identifying key documents related to overweight and obesity in the population group of 35-50 years old men.

The obesity now is one of our problem in the World. According to 2007 statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), New Zealand has the second-highest prevalence of overweight adults in the Anglosphere attaining of 68.4% ,lower than the USA(came first) of 5.7% among them are Australia, Unite Kingdom, Canada and Ireland. In the Ministry of Health in New Zealand statistic survey result 2008 and 2009 Adult Nutrition survey found that “one in four adults (ages 15 years and over) were obese reaching of 27.8% of the population”. While in survey in children “ One in twelve children (aged 2-14 years) were of obese accumulating of 8.3%. Showing that statistics I may conclude that we might be in the stage of obesity now, and in the future extinction of us may follows, like what happen to the dinosaur. Otherwise we should be very vigilant on our HEALTH. Be conscious on.So..

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