Authors :
Clare Viglione, Dylaney Bouwman, Nadera Rahman, Yixin Fang, Jeannette M. Beasley, Scott Sherman, Xavier Pi-Sunyer, Judith Wylie-Rosett, Craig Tenner and Melanie Jay.
Article outline
Point 1: America has a major problem with obesity and the resultant healthcare issues that obesity causes.
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Evidence: 39.5% of Americans are obese, meaning their Body Mass Index is above 30 kilograms per square meter (Viglione et al., 2019).
Point 2: Americans are reluctant and to some extent unwilling to do what it takes to remedy the obesity problem.
Evidence: PCPs struggle to contain the obesity problem inter alia due to poor patient attitude. This means that Americans are compromising the fight against obesity actively or passively (Viglione et al., 2019).
Point 3: Among the groups afflicted, the most by the obesity problems are US Veterans, including those suffering from other medical conditions because of their service.
Evidence: The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has had to develop a Weight Management Program called MOVE and more recently Goals for Eating and Moving (GEM) to handle the obesity problem among veterans (Viglione et al., 2019).
Point 4: Obese US Veterans are also unwilling to make use of available resources to mitigate their obesity problem.
Evidence: Despite visiting their general practitioners at least three times a year, 90% of obese veterans are unwilling to attend MOVE even once (Viglione et al., 2019)!
Point 5: The government has invested in technology to mitigate the obesity problem but despite the technology being effective, there is apprehension about those suffering from obesity declining to use it.
Evidence: The federal government in conjunction with inter alia the VHA has developed a technological-assisted weight mitigation formula dubbed GEM (Viglione et al., 2019).
Point 6: The obesity mitigating technology seems to be acceptable but more research is necessary to establish efficacy.
Evidence: The instant research study investigated the acceptability of GEM, not its effectiveness, which is already known. The study makes recommendations for yet another study to investigate the efficacy of the study in veterans, an investigation whose primary variable is the veterans, not the study itself (Viglione et al., 2019).
Summary of Main Points and Sub-points
The main point in the article is that obesity is a major problem in the USA affected all kinds of citizens, including military veterans. The US government has invested immensely in seeking to mitigate the problem of obesity and its resultant medical vagaries such as diabetes and cardiovascular disorders. Mitigation measures have failed, inter alia because of non-cooperation from citizens affected by diabetes.
The main segment of the population addressed in the article relates to US military veterans whose healthcare is a responsibility of the Federal government through organizations such as the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). The VHA has developed programs such as MOVE, a weight management program. However, obese veterans have declined to participate in the program hence limiting its success. Finally, the article presents evidence that the federal government has not given up on solving the obesity problem as it keeps coming up with new innovative ideas of how to assist the obese in society.
Personal Response
It is unfortunate that a nation that is so concerned about safety and security has allowed and even encourages a powerful killer like obesity to roam free in its midst. Obesity encourages a wide variety of dangerous conditions such as cardiovascular disorders and diabetes (Viglione et al., 2019). Over and above the fatalities, pain, and suffering, such conditions also carry economic ramifications such as labor loss and medical expenses. If any other threat would kill as many people as obesity does, Americans would be up in arms at all cost.
Veteran Affairs continues to cost the American taxpayer billions of dollars annually. Whereas the nation owes the veterans a great debt, hence should be willing to spend on them, it should be incumbent on the veterans to make good use of the services provided for them through tax dollars.
There might be a genuine reason why Americans, including veterans, are unwilling to participate in obesity mitigation processes. A good example of such reasons is the stigmatization of those who are overweight or obese. In popular culture, Miss America will be extremely petite while Mr. America has well-toned muscles. The social concept of beauty has created either a sense of denial or fear of admission on the part of the obese. Due to denial or fear, the obese have declined to seek medical attention.
The monumental investments made in developing programs such as Goals for Eating and Moving (GEM) are commendable. However, the citizenry needs to meet the government halfway by making good use of these amenities to fight obesity. More importantly, it is high time to undertake preventative measures against obesity through lifestyle changes in order to eliminate the need for obesity management measures definitively.
References
Viglione, C., Bouwman, D., Rahman, N., Fang, Y., Beasley, J. M., Sherman, S., ... & Jay, M. (2019). A technology-assisted health coaching intervention vs. enhanced usual care for Primary Care-Based Obesity Treatment: a randomized controlled trial. BMC Obesity , 6 (1), 4
