Promote Wellness

“The physical and emotional health of an entire generation and the economic health and security of our nation is at stake” a quote made by the First Lady, Michelle Obama, as she launches her comprehensive initiative to change the way children think about nutrition and physical fitness (“Learn the Facts,” 2010). Three decades ago, children lived active lives that kept them healthier. They walked to and from school, ate home cooked, reasonable portion meals with vegetables and played outdoors most of the time. Today, children ride the bus instead of walk, eat more fast food and snacks throughout the day because parents are busier, and watch more television or play video games rather than be active outside with peers (“Learn the Facts,” 2010). Young children are becoming overweight and obese along with being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes more frequently. They are making poor dietary choices, inadequate physical activity, and spending too much screen time all contributing to the obesity crisis. One of the effective solutions to reversing the trend of childhood obesity is to provide safe, affordable and accessible after-school health and physical fitness educational programs for all school ages across the nation.

As a future educator of physical education, I feel that our nation’s weight problem is an issue that needs to be addressed. I feel that it is and will be my job to educate students about the importance of taking care of your body because “fat kids have a 92% chance of becoming fat adults” (www.amp.com). The leading cause of death in the United States, for men and women, is heart disease. “The United States alone the estimated annual number of deaths attributable to obesity is about 280,000.”

Childhood obesity is a major cause for concern within the United States. This is mainly due to children not getting the require nutrition that they need. Although study show that there is a decrease in obesity in children, it still remains at an all-time high. Children are failing to eat as healthy as they should, and it has become an even bigger problem now that they aren’t getting the require amount of food in their diets. The USDA made a decision a couple of years ago to reduce the amount of food given to children while they are at school. This hurts them tremendously, because the majority of the food they eat comes from being at school all day. The other half lies on the parents when they go home and eat dinner. It is very important for children to eat healthy and eat the required amount of food according to various dietary guidelines. First Lady Michelle Obama has started a new campaign to help kids and parents combat obesity in children. One thing that the campaign has placed emphases on is getting healthier food within school. Although they are getting healthier foods in school they are beginning to change the proportion they are giving students. Through the First Lady’s Let’s Move campaign students should be giving healthier foods and also be allowed to have the correct proportion to help them maintain a healthy diet.

Equality in everything, including health issues, has to be the main feature of the modern world. National health programs of the US operate to ensure adequate and timely treatment of all citizens. Nevertheless, health indicators of some racial and ethnic groups are significantly worse than of the white Americans. It applies to the Hispanic Americans and significantly affects their lives. The current health status of this minority is far from satisfactory and needs improvements through existing programs and the development of new approaches to address

A problem that is plaguing America and needs to be addressed with a policy change in school systems across the country is obesity. Obesity in America has been declared an epidemic, and the most alarming rates of obesity exist in younger demographics, which generally dictate that these children will continue into adulthood as obese adults (Jacobson, Kim, & Tortolero, 2009). This will add to the massive costs to society that obesity contributes from loss of employee hours to hospital care from the many diseases that are developed as a result of obesity. Therefore, this issue needs to be addressed early in life with school-aged children as it is far more difficult to stop obese adults from engaging in negative behavior that facilitates or worsens their obesity while legislative action can be taken to develop rules and regulations that can be implemented in school districts across the country.

The issue of obesity has been ongoing in the American society for over a decade and there is much that can be done to fix it. As the great businessman Richard Attias said, “Obesity is a problem that nearly every nation in the world is facing, but there is much that we can do to fix it” (Attais). With very little progress being made to stop or slow it down in the present time, the focus should be shifted towards the future. America’s younger generation should be taught about health, nutrition and preventing major weight gain. Adding lessons and classes to the American public school system that pertain to these subjects would greatly benefit our society in the future. Educating students about nutrition and physical activities will make them more aware about their health and staying healthy. This will cause students to be more proactive by eating healthier and exercising frequently. As a result, there will be a decrease in obesity in our society as the younger generation grows up.

The object of this assignment is to critically appraise a health promotion initiative related to midwifery practice. The initiative chosen is a NHS Health Scotland leaflet entitled 'Smoking: giving up during pregnancy: a guide for pregnant women who want to stop smoking' (NHS Health Scotland 2003). It will be referred to as the 'initiative' or the 'leaflet' throughout this assignment.

In light of the concerns for the future of health in the United States, there have been movements, which in turn ignited sparks to jumpstart campaigns to fight against junk food and obesity. Michelle Obama, the First Lady of the United States, kickstarted a campaign called “Let’s Move” which is dedicated to help solve and reverse the rising childhood obesity rates (Learnthefacts). This movement is all about preserving the health for the future generations. The main goals for this movement is to give parents helpful information and fostering environments that support healthy choices, provide healthier food choices in schools, and to make sure healthy food alternatives are affordable for any family(Learnthefacts). In my junior year of high school,

Childhood obesity is one of the major health challenges of the 21st century. (World Health Organization, 2016). In the last 30 years, obesity has more than doubled in children. Overweight and obesity are the result of caloric imbalance and can cause physical and psychological problems in children. A global shift in dietary habits and lack of physical activity play a crucial role in childhood obesity. Healthy lifestyle habits, such as healthy eating and physical activity can reduce the risk of becoming obese. School plays an important role in establishing a safe and supportive environment with policies and practices that support healthy behaviors (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015). The fifty state legislation on childhood obesity policy was enacted in 2013. Many states including, Texas has enacted some type of school nutrition legislation but not on physical education (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2013). Therefore, the author decided to contact a policymaker, a local school board member of Plano, Texas to implement the existing policies of school nutrition and physical activity.

In 2004, Congress passed the Federal Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act. This law mandates that all local education agencies that acquire monetary aid from the National School Lunch and Breakfast Program to develop a policy that addresses the growing issue of childhood obesity. Furthermore, these institutions must incorporate local stakeholders such as parents, students, administration, and healthcare clinicians to cultivate policies and implement programs that address wellness, nutrition, and physical activity. The federal government recognized the increase morbidity rate in children diagnosed with obesity. Accordingly, the act requires that local systems develop local wellness policies that addresses five broad areas. The broad areas

The proposed course of action differs from the current procedure because there is no established approach to address obesity specifically. Healthy eating is addressed briefly during health classes. Exercise and movement has an implied understanding during physical education classes. Obesity is an issue that has been typically left to parents and medical professionals to deal with outside of school. However, we now know that there are implications that affect this group of students

Health and wellness are increasingly being used. Health actually is more to a medical and describes the mental and physical state of a person. It will reflect a lack of disease of a person. In the contrary, wellness is defined as the overall process of maintaining a state of good health of a person. Wellness involves conscious decisions on the part of the individual, while health simply describes a person's condition of the body. However, the combined phrase health and wellness showed the meaning of the state of complete physical, mental, emotional health and social wellbeing, and it is when a person is absence of disease.

There will be five dimensions explained under this topic. Which are: Financial dimension, physical dimension, intellectual dimension, emotional dimension and social dimension. Wellness is substantially more than only physical wellbeing, activity or sustenance. It is the full coordination of conditions of these five dimensions.

Health is defined as a state in which human needs are met in an autonomic way, and is not limited to the absence of disease or disablement (V. Henderson). Optimal health is a lively, self-motivated equilibrium of physical, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and social well-being. The concept of health promotion delineates the method of empowering people to increase control over, and to advance their own overall health.

It is always important to take care of your body. The importance of your health is a big deal. There are many reasons why you should care for your body. Not taking care of your body can affect your social health. You can become ill which means you will be at home or seeking medical attention all the time. You won’t be able to function how you usually do. Taking care of yourself affects every aspect of your life. Mentally and emotionally you might not be able to handle the things that you will have to go through. You might fall into a depression and with that emotionally you’re eating habits will become bad. You will lose out on the things that are important to you.