Obesity and its prevalence in Australia
Jonathan is 7 years old kid who is currently studying in grade 5 in the community school in Sydney. Jonathan has been experiencing obesity since he was a child. Jonathan likes to draw and paint. He gets bullied in his school by his classmates and older students from other classes. Jonathan has started to feel bad and depressed about his body and now he lives with anxiety and stress of being overweight. His mother is a beautician and his father owns a garage. They have been constantly supporting Jonathan throughout every phase of his life. His dad makes him understand that it is okay to be obese but he should not think negative about his own body and must try his level best to reduce the excess weight. He has constantly trying to avoid school or interacting with his friends because he is tired of listening about his weight and physical look. As a student nurse, I will try to analyse and diagnose the problem based on the medical terminology. I will meet the patient (Jonathan) and his family to inform them about the assessment criteria and the health impacts arising due to obesity. It is the major responsibility of a nurse to aware the patient about diseases arising from obesity such as obesity and the increasing risk of cardiovascular disease. They can also inform them by advising them about nutritional intakes and about weight loss programmes which focuses on reduced calorie intakes and increased physical activity (Durbin, 2018). It is also a nurse’s responsibility by taking into consideration the whole family because it would be difficult for them to practice dietary habits if they are not supported by families.
Obesity is a very sensitive topic for both children and their families. It has become very common for children to become obese and overweight which affects one out of every four child in Australia. Obese or overweight individuals are expected to more likely to experience health problems when they turn adults, but their parents and nurses can play an important role of informing them about good eating habits and daily exercise which will be carried into their adulthood (Black, Hughes, & Jones, 2018). An obese or overweight child is known to carry extra weight and body fat for their actual age. Their weight range will fall outside of the healthy weight range and the body mass will also be out of range. In Australia, children aged between 4-15 years of age, one out of every sixth child is suffering from overweight. One out of fourteen children is obese. The children who lived in either a regional area or a remote area are more likely to be overweight when compared to people living in city areas ( Schaller, Stephenson-Somers, Ariza, Quadri, & Binns, 2019).
Obesity increases the risk of poor physical health in a child and this is a major risk factor which results in illness and is responsible for adult mortality. Both overweight and obesity are resulted from sustained imbalance of energy in which the total energy consumed by a child via eating and drinking outweighs the form of energy they expend by doing physical activity and other bodily functions. The health impacts of obesity include significant changes in physical and psychological health of children. Overweight children are very likely to be obese in their adulthood that increases the impact of diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular problems (Health Direct, 2020). The main reason of increasing obesity in children is due to increasing intake of sugary food and soft drinks, basically unhealthy eating habits results in obesity among them. The minimal or negligible physical activity in children is also another important reason of overweight and obesity.
Causes and contributing factors of obesity in children
Just like the role of unhealthy eating habits and reduced physical activity, family and environment can also play a role in health impacts arising from obesity in children. Family members can also share a tendency of gaining excessive weight for a child. Based on study reports, a child is more likely to turn obese if any of their close friend or family member is seen to gain some pounds. The analyses provide the detailed outcome about the role of social ties and their contribution in obesity and gaining weight. Even though genetics play a major role in obesity, other sedentary factors like influence of family or environment are also very common (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2020). Based on the study results of The New England Journal of Medicine, friendships are more likely to influence the weight of an individual. The closest friend’s obesity is known to increase the other person chances of obesity by 171%. The most basic norm that is visible for this outcome is that children find it okay to gain weight if any of their known members has gained it too (Hui , Mohamed Radzi, & Jenatabadi, 2017).
Genes and environmental factors also play an important role in obesity as it is a multifactorial disease. Obesity is known to be associated with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer, Huntington disease and also diseases arising from neurodevelopmental diseases like autism and schizophrenia (Ewens, Kemp, Towell-Barnard , & Whitehead, 2022). It has been demonstrated by several researchers that genes involved in melanocortin system regulate the balance of energy in body and mutation in such genes is known to be associated with monogenic obesity.
Obesity is a major risk factor that is also associated with several neurological consequences like dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. It also affects the cognitive balance in children. Excess weight among children is related to several impairments in the executive functioning of body. Overweight results in weak memory power, reduced ability to pay attention, lessened mental flexibility and their ability to make decisions is also affected (American Psychological Association, 2016). Obesity reduces the cognitive development in children by hampering their motor development. When compared to normal people, obese children are seen to have lower life expectancy rates and premature mortality. Overweight children are known to fall into lowest quartile of global reasoning and understanding, verbal fluency, reduced ability to recall, poorer immediate logical memory and lower intelligence capacity.
Children are known to experience deficit in executive functioning, attention power, ability of mental rotation, problems in solving mathematical questions, and reduced reading and listening ability. Children are expected to go through the problems that normally occur in adult stage, like diabetes, increased blood pressure and increased cholesterol. They begin to experience joint pain and accumulation of fat which results in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease ( Flores-Dorantes, Díaz-López, & Gutiérrez-Aguilar, 2020). There are certain emotional and social compilations that are associated with obesity in children. Obese children are more likely to experience bullying by their friends, family members or their peers. This results in reduced self-esteem and higher risk of depression and anxiety. They might isolate themselves from everyone under the effect of bullying and body shaming ( Panuganti, Nguyen, Kshirsagar, & Doerr, 2021). To improve this condition in children, it is a nurse’s and family member’s responsibility to suggest and help them develop healthy eating habits and practice daily exercise so that they can feel better about their own body.
Health impacts of obesity on children
Though nurses are very well placed in and adapted in primary care, community settings and schools for identification and management of paediatric obesity and overweight. The sustainability of the interventions led by nurses for prevention or treatment of overweight and obesity in children plays a very important role in therapeutic engagement of nurses in the interventional program (Wang, Chan, Ren, & Yan, 2016). Nursing clinical interventions of managing childhood obesity and overweight does possess the potential of reducing the prevalence of obesity in adults and improving the long-term life quality and eventually reducing the health costs. The inclusive and high-intensity behavioural nursing interventions for obesity in children when compared with general clinical care have been known to reduce the prevalence of obese children.
The child will be assessed based on the basis of BMI-for-age percentiles. The weight of child cannot be measured alone on basis of BMI index, the calculated BMI must be plotted on the BMI-for-age percentile graph to know about the weight status of child. For measuring the tissue or body organ fat, best assessment technique used is Computerized Tomography and MRI scanning (Mayo Clinic, 2020). These assessment techniques will accurately find the fat percentage in child’s body. The best nursing interventions that can be best suited here are by advising and educating child about healthy eating habits and benefits of daily exercising. The nurse can also promote these objectives by the help of multifactorial nursing interventions that includes physical, dietary and behavioural interventions amongst children and their families as well.
To conclude, it can be said that obesity is a major problem that is being experienced in Australia and the ratio of obesity among children is also very high. For better health outcomes in health, the nurses plan nursing interventions to help prevent the existing obesity in children. They promote better health education which includes all the required outcomes to manage and control obesity and overweight in children.
References
Flores-Dorantes, M., Díaz-López, Y., & Gutiérrez-Aguilar, R. (2020). Environment and Gene Association With Obesity and Their Impact on Neurodegenerative and Neurodevelopmental Diseases. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 14(863). doi:10.3389/fnins.2020.00863
Panuganti, K., Nguyen, M., Kshirsagar, R., & Doerr, C. (2021). Obesity (Nursing). StatPearls. doi:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK568702/
Schaller, K., Stephenson-Somers, L., Ariza, A., Quadri, M., & Binns, H. (2019). Case Reports: Multifaceted Experiences Treating Youth with Severe Obesity. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(6), 927. doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.3390%2Fijerph16060927
American Psychological Association. (2016, June). Obesity and the growing brain. Retrieved from American Psychological Association: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/06/obesity-brain#:~:text=Excess%20weight%20in%20children%20is,of%20California%2C%20San%20Diego%20(UCSD
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2020, August 13). Overweight and obesity among Australian children and adolescents. Retrieved from Australian Institute of Health and Welfare: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/overweight-obesity/overweight-obesity-australian-children-adolescents/summary
Black, N., Hughes, R., & Jones, A. (2018). The health care costs of childhood obesity in Australia: An instrumental variables approach. Economics & Human Biology, 31, 1-18.
Durbin, J. (2018). Pediatric Obesity in Primary Practice: A Review of the Literature. Pediatric Nursing, 44(4).
Ewens, B., Kemp, V., Towell-Barnard , A., & Whitehead, L. (2022). The nursing care of people with class III obesity in an acute care setting: a scoping review. BMC Nursing, 33(21). doi:https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-021-00760-7
Health Direct. (2020, May). Obesity in Children. Retrieved from Health Direct: https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/obesity-in-children#:~:text=In%20Australia%2C%20around%201%20in,this%20age%20range%20are%20obese.
Hui , H., Mohamed Radzi, C., & Jenatabadi, H. (2017). Family Environment and Childhood Obesity: A New Framework with Structural Equation Modeling. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(2), 181. doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.3390%2Fijerph14020181
Mayo Clinic. (2020, December 5). Childhood Obesity. Retrieved from Mayo Clinic: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/childhood-obesity/symptoms-causes/syc-20354827#:~:text=It’s%20particularly%20troubling%20because%20the,poor%20self%2Desteem%20and%20depression.
Wang, C., Chan, J., Ren, L., & Yan, J. (2016). Obesity Reduces Cognitive and Motor Functions across the Lifespan. Neural Plasticity, 2473081. doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.1155%2F2016%2F2473081
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