Since 1980, obesity rates have been on the rise amongst people of different ages. Towards the end of the 20 th century, obese children and teenagers increased by an estimated 50% ( Wall, Mason, Liu, Olfson, Neumark-Sztainer & Blanco, 2019 ). This trend has continued into the 20 th century. According to Wall et al. (2019), an estimated 40% of the obese children will have excess body weight even in their adolescence. An estimated 80% of these adolescents will have excess body weight even in their adulthood (Wall, Mason, Liu, Olfson, Neumark-Sztainer & Blanco, 2019). For adults who have had obesity since their childhood, they may experience severe consequences of the condition due to the long duration they have had excess body weight. As a result, this group of children will be exposed to higher health-related risks, with a higher probability of increased rates of morbidity and mortality, as compared to people who become obese in their adulthood.
Determinants of Pediatric Obesity
Hereditary and non-hereditary factors may predispose individuals to obesity. Amongst children and teenagers, obesity is associated with the absence of body exercises and unhealthy dietary habits. Unhealthy dietary habits lead to consumption of excess calories, and when body exercises are absent, the body retains the excess unused energy as fat ( Skinner, Ravanbakht, Skelton, Perrin & Armstrong 2018; Sahoo et al., 2015 ) . Genetic and social influences also cause pediatric obesity. Level of economic wellbeing, differences in physical surroundings and racial and ethnic differences are some of the factors that may contribute to obesity. These factors determine the amount of energy consumed and expended in the body. The heritability of body weight and genetic variation play a significant role in determining how an individual embrace or resists the obesogenic environment ( Finkelstein, 2017 ) . Other factors that play a role in pediatric obesity include epigenetic, endocrine ailment, intrauterine vulnerabilities, and iatrogenic, among others.
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Significance of Pediatric Obesity to Nursing
Nurse practitioners can significantly contribute to decreasing the growing numbers of obese children. Obesity can lead to lifestyle ailments, for example, Type 2 diabetes and hypertension (Sahoo, Sahoo, Choudhury, Sofi, Kumar, Bhadoria, 2015). Therefore, to reduce mortality levels from these diseases, nurses should help address obesity by adopting various strategies. Body Mass Index (BMI) measurement is a common procedure in health facilities to monitor weight gain among children. Nurses should liaise with families to ensure that a child takes a BMI reading at least once a year (Posford, 2018). The Nurses should also give advice on physical activities and diet to manage a child’s BMI. Also, health facilities should adopt a holistic nursing assessment. To understand the determinants and environmental conditions that contribute to the development of obesity in individual subjects, nurses ought to adopt a comprehensive assessment of patients (Posford, 2018). Nurses need to assess a child and family behavioral and social traits and correlate it to weight gain.
Measures Taken to Prevent Pediatric Obesity
Many educational, policy-based, and practice-based measures have been taken to tackle the issue of obesity among children. Nutritional awareness educational programs are some of the measures put in place to address the issue of weight gain (Williams & Greene, 2018). Facilitation of access to healthy and nutritious foods is also being used to combat excess weight gain (Williams et al., 2018). Other interventions are in the form of the addition of funds and aid in communities for physical activities, psychiatric health, and good sleeping durations and patterns (Williams et al., 2018). The government, in partnership with learning institutions, have adopted initiatives to improve the standard of foods and drinks offered in schools. High-calories drinks have been removed from the school menu.
Additionally, food stores are offered incentives to provide healthy foods. Healthcare facilities have also joined the campaign to reverse the obesity trend. Healthcare facilities have increased the BMI measurements carried out by physicians, which would facilitate effective tracking of weight gain among children. The increased level of BMI measurement is expected to enhance early response to potential cases of overweight and obesity. There is also a need to raise awareness. This will also help improve eating habits and physical activities as well as help bring a culture of change.
Despite the multiple measures devoted to primary and secondary prevention of obesity, there has been a mixed result. Some initiates, such as the adoption of physical activities in schools and communities, have yielded positive results. The introduction of the Physical Activity across the Curriculum (PAAC) intervention program has led to many children taken part in physical activities, which has significantly minimized the increase in BMI (Williams et al., 2018). The incorporation of physical activities in the curricula has made it compulsory for students to take part in these activities (Williams et al., 2018). Although the program to reduce the high-calories beverages in school has reduced access to these deleterious drinks by children, it has not been as effective. The lack of involvement by parents means that these students can still access these beverages at home. The parents ought to have been educated about proper nutritional guidelines. These school-based programs did not involve a specialist who could have contributed to providing the best guidance for healthy food, and physical activities in the early years of schooling. Involvement of specialists would help facilitate the right growth and inculcation of healthy practices and promote a healthy school environment.
Hindrances to Behavioral Modifications and the Success of the Adopted Measures
Multiple barriers hinder the developments made in decreasing the obesity pandemic. Healthcare is one of these barriers. Although there has been an initiative to increase the prevalence of measuring BMI in healthcare facilities, only half of these facilities assess BMI in children (Williams et al., 2018; Jones, Jewell, Saksena, Ramos Salas, & Breda, 2017). Moreover, some of the clinicians indicated that counselling sessions do not yield good results and that they were too busy to offer additional details about obesity. The absence of a health insurance cover in the diagnosis and management of childhood obesity has derailed the effort to address obesity. Socio-economic issues have also impeded the effort to tackle obesity. Children coming from poor neighbourhoods are more prone to the issue of obesity since they lack the financial capability to afford healthy food. Also, low parental education has been linked to obesity prevalence among children. Furthermore, low levels of parental involvement have made other initiatives by the government ineffective. Therefore, to successfully address the obesity pandemic, the abovementioned barriers must be eliminated.
Solutions to the Problem of Obesity
Adoption of healthy dietary practice and engagement in physical exercises can help prevent obesity. Therefore, while the school-based programs to provide a healthy diet to students should continue, parents should be involved (Jones et al., 2017). Outside the school environment, children should still be able to maintain healthy habits. Therefore, parents should be educated about nutrition and physical activities to ensure that these children have a healthy environment irrespective of where they are. In addition to that, healthcare institutions should increase the prevalence of measuring BMI in children. This will enable health practitioners to track weight gain in children. Moreover, private and public insurance programs should introduce covers for the treatment of obesity. The combination of a healthy diet, physical activities, and weight gain assessment in hospitals can help solve the issue of obesity among children.
Evaluation of Outcomes
The outcome of the programs and initiatives will be evaluated through the measurement of children’s BMI. An effective program will, in the long-run, result in a decrease in BMI. The BMI of children exposed to a healthy diet and physical activity initiatives in learning institutions will have their BMI measured to determine if the program has resulted in a significant drop in BMI. The evaluation will be done in two phases. First, the BMI of an entire school population will be measured, and the average calculated. This average will provide a clear picture of the general effect of the program on the entire population. In the next phase, the BMI of children who were obese or at the danger of becoming overweight will be computed. If there is no significant change in BMI, new programs to address obesity can be adopted.
Dissemination of Findings
The outcome of the study is beneficial to the government, learning institutions, and healthcare institutions. The report will, therefore, be posted in a Nursing Journal and the Journal of Childhood Obesity. The finding will also be shared with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Science and Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The finding from the study can also be beneficial to the U.S. Department of Education. The Education department should intensify its effort in promoting school-based programs to address obesity. However, as recommended in the paper, parents should also be involved to make the program more effective.
Conclusion
Obesity in the pediatric population has grown to become a serious health concern. Children suffering from obesity will most probably suffer from obesity in their adulthood. Therefore, incidents of overweightness and obesity during childhood can lead to severe health ailments, for example, diabetes and hypertension and should be addressed as early as possible. Although some measures, such as the introduction of a healthy learning environment through nutrition and physical activities programs, have been put in place, not all are effective. Raising awareness, increasing the prevalence of BMI measurement, and parental involvement in school-based programs should be adopted to tackle obesity among children. The measurement of BMI among children should be employed as an evaluation tool to assess the effectiveness of the proposed programs.
References
Finkelstein, E. A. (2017). Cost-effectiveness of Obesity Interventions: Will We Know It When We See It? Pediatrics , 140 (3), e20171916.
Jones, R. E., Jewell, J., Saksena, R., Ramos Salas, X., & Breda, J. (2017). Overweight and obesity in children under 5 years: surveillance opportunities and challenges for the WHO European Region. Frontiers in public health , 5 , 58.
Posford, G. (2018). The role of healthcare professionals in childhood obesity. British Journal of Healthcare Management , 24 (5), 216-217.
Sahoo, K., Sahoo, B., Choudhury, A. K., Sofi, N. Y., Kumar, R., & Bhadoria, A. S. (2015). Childhood obesity: causes and consequences. Journal of family medicine and primary care , 4 (2), 187.
Skinner, A. C., Ravanbakht, S. N., Skelton, J. A., Perrin, E. M., & Armstrong, S. C. (2018). Prevalence of obesity and severe obesity in U.S. children, 1999–2016. Pediatrics , 141 (3), e20173459.
Wall, M. M., Mason, S. M., Liu, J., Olfson, M., Neumark-Sztainer, D., & Blanco, C. (2019). Childhood psychosocial challenges and risk for obesity in U.S. men and women. Translational psychiatry , 9 (1), 1-12.
Williams, S. E., & Greene, J. L. (2018). Childhood overweight and obesity: Affecting factors, education and intervention. J Child Obes Vol , (3).
