Overweight And Obesity in Adolescents Discussion Paper
The problem of overweight and obesity among teenagers from marginalized minority communities is the clinical practice issue of interest addressed in this initiative. According to studies, they are primarily Hispanic and African American (Ogden et al., 2018). These communities are experiencing an increase in healthcare costs because of the pandemic of childhood overweight and obesity (Bagherniya et al., 2017). Therefore, the problem of adolescent obesity and overweight must be addressed in order to avoid a public health crisis. According to the research that is currently available, between the ages of two and 19, approximately one in three children in the United States are either overweight or obese (Kornet-van der Aa et al., 2017). This project thus proposes some solutions based on scholarly evidence retrieved from current literature. Overweight And Obesity in Adolescents Discussion Paper
Clarification of the Issue under Study
According to Bagherniya et al. (2017), the annual direct healthcare cost of being overweight and obese in the United States and Canada is expected to be around $300 billion USD. The expense of healthcare skyrockets exponentially when you consider that being overweight and obese are independent risk factors for some of the most chronic conditions. In the US, 17% of children and adolescents are obese, compared to 31% who are overweight (Jelalian & Evans, 2017). However, the clinical issue is that low-income areas, who also happen to be marginalized populations, are disproportionately affected by these overweight and obesity numbers and figures.
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Studies show that overweight and obesity is more prevalent among children from low socio-economic backgrounds (Ogden et al., 2018). This is the most important social determinant of health (SDOH) predictor for overweight and obesity. However, there are other SDOH factors too. SDOH are factors a person is born with, grows in, and dies in (Powell, 2016). They have an effect on a person’s health as well as other elements of their life. They include of factors like age, gender, ethnicity, and environment. According to Powell (2016), the other SDOH that would explain the disproportionately high prevalence of overweight and obesity among marginalized adolescents are living conditions, access to quality healthcare, and educational achievement. Overweight And Obesity in Adolescents Discussion Paper
The Proposed Solutions Based on the Literature Review
The proposed solutions to preventing and reducing overweight and obesity among adolescents from marginalized minority communities include the following:
- Advocacy for the amendment of tax laws affecting the sale of sugary-sweetened beverages such as soda (Kennedy, 2016).
- Educational intervention in schools targeting school-feeding programs to avoid high-calorie, low nutrient foods (Bagherniya et al., 2017; Jacob et al., 2019; Jelalian & Evans, 2017).
- Educational intervention targeting the teenagers as well as their parents, with regard to dietary and other lifestyle changes such as consistent exercise (Bagherniya et al., 2017; Jelalian & Evans, 2017; Kornet-van der Aa et al., 2017; Yoshinaga et al., 2018). This will also target education on behavioral changes such as reducing the number of hours of television watched.
- Targeting the adolescents directly using digital strategies such as social media and educational text messages (Partridge & Redfern, 2018).
The first solution to this problem will be advocacy by the APRN and colleagues to policy makers and legislators. This is so that they may introduce amendments to legislation about taxes to food commodities that are contributing to the problem of overweight and obesity. The biggest culprits in this case are the sugary-sweetened beverages such as soda that are usually cheap and accessible to these poor teenagers. They take excessive amounts of soda and the problem of obesity is encouraged. Increasing the taxes will make these food commodities costlier and beyond their reach, hence helping them to avoid these deadly beverages.
In many states there are school feeding programs for the children. In most cases, the school authorities running these feeding programs also require nutritional advice if they are to prepare healthy foods for the children, within their budgets. This will be done by dispatching the APRN and the nutritionist/ dietician to the schools to educate the school administration (Rao et al., 2020). However, the most important solutions will be education on behavioral or lifestyle changes in the form of diet, exercise, and reducing television hours. Exercise has been found to be beneficial both as aerobic isotonic exercise (such as walking and jogging); and resistance exercise such as bearing weights (Najafipour et al., 2017). The adolescents will be advised to take up consistent physical activity and reduce the number of hours spent watching television. Overweight And Obesity in Adolescents Discussion Paper
Because technology and digital communications is now pervasive and teenagers are at the forefront; this strategy will also be harnessed to help resolve the problem (Partridge & Redfern, 2018). Educational messages will be regularly sent to these teenagers’ social media accounts. Text messages will also be sent to them regularly. These efforts will complement those that have been outlined above as the main interventions.
Comparison of Other Views on the Problem and Solutions
The other view on the problem of overweight and obesity as well as its solutions is that of using alternative therapies. For instance, according to Lua et al. (2021), hypnotherapy and acupuncture produced significantly greater reduction in body weight as opposed to placebo. In comparison to people of normal weight, some studies have shown that adults with obesity use yoga therapy at a lower prevalence and a variety of CAM modalities at a similar prevalence. These include relaxation techniques, natural herbs, massage, chiropractic care, tai chi, and acupuncture.
In other words, the above alternative therapies are not being used as they are supposed to by those who are overweight and obese. This may not be a patient problem but a provider problem. Providers should be sensitized through further research to recommend these alternative therapies as complementary approaches to the traditional evidence-based practice (EBP) measures outlined above. Overweight And Obesity in Adolescents Discussion Paper
APRN Role in the Interventions and Implications for Practice
The role of the APRN will be to collect and analyze the data, to implement the interventions through a team, and to manage barriers and promote facilitators. The parents will be invited to the individual schools to participate in the educational program with the school administration as part of the intervention delivery process. This will be the most practical strategy to cut money and save time. Information regarding the presentation would be supplied well in advance to give the involved parties adequate time to organize and disseminate the information.
Presentations from the podium and hands-on exercises will be used for instruction. The participants will also receive hand-outs. The trainers (educators) will require training because they must first familiarize themselves with the subject matter and have the materials close at hand. This is due to the likelihood that both parents and school administrators will have several inquiries that need to be addressed. In that case, it is expected that the educators will be able to respond to these queries and provide best practices.
The questionnaire is the tool that will be used to gather data. The response rate will be calculated after collecting all the instruments that were mailed back. This is because in any study activity, the rate of response can never be one hundred percent. All of the instructors will also serve as research assistants and will participate in the data cleaning process. A team of four educators with proven data analysis competency will be designated to manage the data. They will analyse and display the data in a descriptive manner as well as inferential terms. Graphs, charts, tables, and percentages will all be included. Overweight And Obesity in Adolescents Discussion Paper
Inadequate funding and the subjects’ unwillingness to change are two obstacles to this initiative. Better preparation and careful attention to the information and persuasion stages, respectively, can overcome these. An organizational culture of change in the targeted schools is a facilitator. Another facilitator is the availability of a sufficient number of baccalaureate nurses with understanding of EBP and research methodology. The main difficulty will be finishing the project within the money and time frame allotted.
Implications of the Change Project
The implications of the change project described in this paper will be that:
- The quality of life of the teenagers from disadvantaged communities will be improved.
- They will show better academic performance.
- There will be lower morbidity among this population demographic.
- Long-term morbidity and mortality from chronic lifestyle diseases such as heart disease and diabetes will be reduced.
- Public health expenditure on this population demographic by the health authorities will drop in the long term.
Important Considerations Made
The interventions considered in this project have a very clear connection to the identified research problem. The problem is teenage overweight and obesity, and the solutions recommended from current literature evidence address overweight and obesity in teenagers. The data collection method that has been specified to be used is the questionnaire. Analysis of the data will be both descriptive (tables, graphs, percentages) and inferential using nonparametric tests such as Chi-square and linear regression. Overweight And Obesity in Adolescents Discussion Paper
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The justification for subject selection is that previous research has already showed the problem is prevalent among African Americans and Hispanics. Random sampling on the other hand is the best for the best validity and reliability. Potential limitations include resistance to change and paucity of resources. Practical limitations affecting data collection include dishonest answers and adults filling for the teenagers the questionnaires. Attempting to control the limitations will mean having research assistants go physically to the sampled households and collecting the data. This change project will help fill gaps in understanding the problem by shedding light on the effectiveness of the interventions.
Conclusion
Overweight and obesity is a serious problem that disproportionately affects teenagers from poor backgrounds. It has been discovered that this is due to specific SDOH, particularly low family incomes. Current scholarly literature however provides evidence-based interventions that can be used to reduce and prevent this problem. This project dives into the topic of overweight and obesity Overweight And Obesity in Adolescents Discussion Paper