Impact of obesity on the lifestyle of Australian adolescents
Question:
Discuss about the Adolescent Obesity and Impact on Lifestyle.
In present days, the cases of the childhood obesity are increasing in many countries like Australia, India, United Kingdom, and United State. Due to overweight, the lifestyle of people change. Obesity in the childhood can be dangerous for the adulthood. In 2014-2015, the rate of the overweight people was 63% (Cunningham, Kramer & Narayan, 2014). This can misbalance the lifestyle of the people, who are suffering from obesity. Therefore, the main purpose of the research study is evaluating obesity the adolescents and the impact on the lifestyle. Approximately 80% adolescents, who suffer from overweight in childhood, have the chance to suffer from serious health issues in adulthood. Therefore, it is necessary to modify the habits from the childhood to avoid the risks of dangerous health issues in future. Obesity has major impact on the children as well as adults. Obese people suffer from depression and have less self- confidence.
The main aim of the research study is to search the factors that cause obesity in Australian adolescents. The research study determines statistics of obesity and the prevalence in adolescents. This can help the people of Australia to be aware of the harmful risk factors of adolescent obesity. Obesity can be the cause of various diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and neuromuscular disease (Bailey et al., 2014). It is necessary to identify the problems and risk factors of obesity in early stage of childhood to avoid the dangerous risks in adulthood. After finding the risk factors, it will be easier to fight against the adolescent obesity, as it became the threat for the nation. The aim is to make people aware about the overweight and obesity in the adolescents. The problems of the obesity increase with the time and age (Ganter et al., 2016).
According to AIHW (2017), obesity is the second highest disease in the world in terms of the dietary risks. This shows the poor result of people in the nation. It is necessary to find out the causes behind the increasing rate of obesity and the future consequences (Balakrishnan, 2014). The result helps to determine the risks, which leads to obesity. The outcome of the result will help to promote the awareness programs among the individuals and communities. When the energy intake rate is higher than the energy expenditure, the weight gain occurs. The programs can help the people of Australia to overcome the obesity and provide positive outcome of the research study. Thus, the research focuses on the reason of the obesity among the people of Australia. However, Bergh and Ketchen (2011) mentioned that obesity can be controlled in childhood if proper action can be taken. Therefore, people need to be aware and motivate their children to live a healthy lifestyle via healthy eating habit and practicing moderate physical activities. The modified routine needs to be full of fun so that the children can enjoy this (Ding et al., 2015).
- To evaluate the factors affecting the lifestyle of adolescents
- To evaluate the impact of obesity on adolescents
- What are the factors that affect the lifestyle of adolescents and cause obesity?
- What is the impact of obesity on the adolescents?
- How the problems of obesity can be overcome to achieve better life?
Causes and risk factors of adolescent obesity
The independent variable is the adolescent obesity and the dependent variable is the impact on the lifestyle.
H0: The adolescent obesity does not have an impact on the lifestyle of the adolescents.
H1: The adolescent obesity has an impact on the lifestyle of the adolescents.
From the past decades, the human lifestyle and society has been changed with the advancement in technology. The simple lifestyle of people converted to the hectic lifestyle (Bernard, 2011). It became luxurious and the eating habit also changed. In present days, people depend on the ready to eat foods and fast foods. The lifestyle is lack of physical activities, which increases the complicated health issues. With the hectic schedule, the stress is also increasing in people. Obesity increases the health problems such as high blood cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, anxiety, cardiovascular complication and kidney problems. Risks of obesity increase with the age. Approximately 63% people worldwide are suffering from the problem of obesity and overweight (Ganter et al., 2016). Blüher et al., (2014) mentioned that BMI rate plays important role in case of obesity in Australia. The BMI rate of the adolescents are increasing and the overweight people are at the high risk. The rate of overweight adolescents of Australia has increased to 17% from 15.3% of the boys and 19.3% from 16.3% of the girls (Chambers & Nammuni, 2017). These children are overweight but not obese. The research study is trying to find out the causes of obesity and overweight among the adolescents. The collected data shows that obesity and overweight can be cured in the early stages of life (Koye, Shaw & Magliano, 2017).
However, the main causes of the adolescent obesity are the inactive lifestyle and unhealthy dietary habit. Other factors that can affect the adolescence weight are the genetic factors, behavioral factors and environmental factors (Colagiuri, 2017). When the energy intake rate is higher than the energy expenditure, the weight gain occurs. Moreover, most of the adolescents cannot understand the food intake limit. In such condition, the parents need to be aware and take proper action to modify the eating pattern of the children. Children like to eat spicy, carbohydrate, fat and sugar enriched foods, which is harmful for their health. As a result, the children gain and become overweight. Most of children are habituated in luxurious lifestyle (Ding et al., 2015). They prefer to go to school by cars in comparison to cycles or walking. The sedentary and luxurious lifestyle makes the children inactive. Therefore, it is necessary to modify the lifestyle and make it active. The parents need to influence the adolescents to join the educational sessions and modify the daily dietary intake. They can add colorful healthy vegetables to the plates of the adolescents that influence the adolescents to take healthy food habit. The parents also need to join such campaigns with their children to modify their lifestyle (Koye, Shaw & Magliano, 2017). The parents can join with their children in the physical activity practice, which will influence them to modify the lifestyle.
Risks associated with adolescent obesity
It is necessary to increase the awareness among the adolescents and their parents of Australia. The campaigns and programs of obesity had a positive impact on the obesity (Koye, Shaw & Magliano, 2017). This type of activities influence people lives a healthy life. Ehrenthal et al., (2013) stated that the obese people might have psychological problems as well as physiological problems. The obese people are lack of self- confidence, which lead them towards the depression. Depression is harmful for health that leads to health issues like hypertension and cardiovascular problems (Overweight and obesity (AIHW)., 2017). Therefore, their academic profile may be affected and their results of examination can gradually fall. In such cases, the strong family bonding play significant role. The parents can motivate the children to live the active life. They can admit the children in the dance classes, swimming, and yoga centers. Other factors that can reduce the overweight problem are cycling and walking. According to Cunningham, Kramer and Narayan (2014), the moderate physical exercise influence the calorie rate and the metabolic rate of body increase. As a result, the calorie burn occurs and reduces the weight.
In this research study, the researcher will use the primary research methods. The help of the primary research tools will conduct the research. The researcher will use the positivism philosophy, as it will help the researcher to support the data collection method. This will support collection of the primary data from research field (Creswell, 2011). This will help to analyze the primary data with the scientific literature, which exist from previous time. The deductive approach will help the researcher to deduce the knowledge from the scientific literatures, concepts, and theories. This will help to known the associated factors of the adolescent obesity. This method will help the researcher to analyze the research hypothesis and validity of the research findings. The deductive research approach will help to carry out this research study in the in- depth manner to analyze the factors that are associated with the study topic (Crouch & Pearce, 2012).
The research strategy of the study is the survey and interview of the managers and employees on the AIHW. Here, the researcher will survey 47 employees and 3 managers. The questionnaire will include the proper questions to investigate the risk factors such as hypertension, high LDL cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, stroke, gallbladder disease, and osteoarthritis, which are associated with the adolescent obesity (Creswell, 2011). The researcher will select particular primary data tool to enhance the quality of the study. This will provide quality data that will be analyzed.
In view of Bergh and Ketchen (2011), the researcher can use two methods of data collection that are the qualitative and quantitative data collection. The quantitative data will help to use the likert scale to collect the data from the 47 employees of AIHW. The quality data will be collected for the purpose of the quantitative data analysis. The qualitative data collection will help to collect the data of the 3 managers, who will be chosen for the interview. The researcher will make the survey questionnaire based on the likert scale that has five grades such as strongly agreed, agreed, and neutral, disagree, and strongly disagree. The response of the participants will be collected with the help of the open- ended questionnaire (refer to appendix 1). This will help to reduce the biasness and standard errors of the data collection. The mixed method of the data collection will help the researcher so that he may face fewer problems during the data collection for the research study.
Preventing adolescent obesity
The sampling method and the data analysis method depend on the data collection method. For the research study, the researcher will choose random sampling. For the research study, descriptive statistical analysis will be suitable, which will provide the researcher opportunities to meet research objectives. This will help to analysis risks factors of adolescent obesity. The qualitative data cannot avoid the complication of the data analysis therefore, the mixed method analysis is chosen for the research Bergh and Ketchen (2011). For the data collection, the researcher will choose 3 managers and 47 employees of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). The researcher will interview the managers and survey the employees to gather the authentic data for the analysis (Creswell, 2011). Therefore, the researcher will make questionnaire to know the risk factors associated with the adolescent obesity.
During the research study, the researcher will follow the Data Protection Act (1998). It is necessary to maintain the ethical principles to avoid the ethical issues (Bergh & Ketchen, 2011). The researcher needs to take the consent of the participants for the data collection. Moreover, the purpose of the research study needs to be explained to the participants so that they can provide the proper information. The researcher will keep the data of the participants safely to maintain the confidentiality. The collected data are authentic as the data collection method will be primary data collection. The results of the interpreted data will e authentic with the data. The researcher will eliminate the bias responses and this will make the work authentic (Crouch & Pearce, 2012). Manipulation of data and result is avoided completely. The participants can answer freely. The questionnaire should not hurt the emotion and feelings of the participants to make the research authentic.
Reference
AIHW (2017). Aihw.gov.au. Retrieved 8 March 2017, from https://www.aihw.gov.au/overweight-and-obesity/
Bailey, L.C., Forrest, C.B., Zhang, P., Richards, T.M., Livshits, A. & DeRusso, P.A., 2014. Association of antibiotics in infancy with early childhood obesity. JAMA pediatrics, 168(11), pp.1063-1069.
Balakrishnan, P.L., 2014. Identification of obesity and cardiovascular risk factors in childhood and adolescence. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 61(1), pp.153-171.
Bergh, D. & Ketchen, D. J. 2011. Research methodology in Strategy and Management, 1st ed. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Ltd
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Blüher, S., Petroff, D., Wagner, A., Warich, K., Gausche, R., Klemm, T., Wagner, M. & Keller, A., 2014. The one year exercise and lifestyle intervention program KLAKS: Effects on anthropometric parameters, cardiometabolic risk factors and glycemic control in childhood obesity. Metabolism, 63(3), pp.422-430.
Chambers, J. & Nammuni, I. (2017). Peripheral Arterial Disease: An Australian Perspective. In Vascular Surgery (pp. 109-112). Springer International Publishing.
Colagiuri, S. (2017). Diabetes in Indigenous Australians and Other Underserved Communities in Australia. In Diabetes Mellitus in Developing Countries and Underserved Communities (pp. 151-163). Springer International Publishing.
Creswell, J. W. 2011. Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods
Crouch, C. & Pearce, J. 2012. Doing Research in Design – Page 68, 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Cunningham, S.A., Kramer, M.R. & Narayan, K.V., 2014. Incidence of childhood obesity in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine, 370(5), pp.403-411.
Ding, D., Chong, S., Jalaludin, B., Comino, E. & Bauman, A.E. (2015). Risk factors of incident type 2-diabetes mellitus over a 3-year follow-up: Results from a large Australian sample. Diabetes research and clinical practice, 108(2), pp.306-315.
Ehrenthal, D.B., Maiden, K., Rao, A., West, D.W., Gidding, S.S., Bartoshesky, L., Carterette, B., Ross, J. & Strobino, D., 2013. Independent relation of maternal prenatal factors to early childhood obesity in the offspring. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 121(1), pp.115-121.
Ganter, C., Aftosmes-Tobio, A., Chuang, E., Blaine, R.E., Land, T. & Davison, K.K., 2016. Community Stakeholders’ Perceptions of Major Factors Influencing Childhood Obesity, the Feasibility of Programs Addressing Childhood Obesity, and Persisting Gaps. Journal of community health, 41(2), pp.305-314.
Koye, D.N., Shaw, J.E. & Magliano, D.J. (2017). Diabetes and disability in older Australians: The Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle (AusDiab) study. Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice, 126, pp.60-67.