Health Promotion With Emphasis on Obesity: Work Plan

Epidemiological Rationale for Topic

In general, 43% of American Indians are categorized as obese while a further 34.5% are considered overweight, with a meager 22.8% experiencing normal/low weight (Indian Health Service, 1996; Troiano & Flegal, 2007). Obesity constitutes a major risk among the Navajo children, just like it does to the general population. This is mainly attributed to the shift from traditional foods and activity levels to modern foods constituting high fats and calories, in addition to the change to a sedentary lifestyle (Maurer & Smith, 2009).

Nursing Diagnosis

The causes of increased susceptibility to obesity are numerous most of them stemming from the lifestyle adopted by the Navajo people. These include:

1. Imbalanced nutrition and hence susceptibility to risk factors including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular conditions as well as increased lipid levels (Welty, 2008).
2. Poor health habits include eating habits, sexual inappropriate actions.
3. Knowledge inadequacy/ignorance.
4. Social stigma and self-esteem issues.
5. Cultural issues.

Readiness for Learning

Identify the factors that would indicate the readiness to learn for the target aggregate. Include emotional and experiential readiness to learn.

Learning Theory to Be Utilized: health belief model issued in development of this teaching plan. Dealing with a cultured community, it is important to create beliefs that will counter the negative beliefs they already have.

Goal: the teaching plan sets to address overweight and obesity as constituted in HP2010, AOCBC-7.1, for weight reduction among overweight and obese persons. It seeks to not only assist persons faced with problems of overweight and obesity within the community but also to protect those currently enjoying good health from falling victims to overweight and obesity (National Center for Health Statistics, 2009; Public Health Service, 2008). This objective, just like Alma Ata’s Health for All Global Initiatives is keen on providing universal health for all (Maurer & Smith, 2009).

Develop Behavioral Objectives (Including Domains), Content, and Strategies/Methods

Behavioral Objective and Domain (Cognitive Domain)	Content	Strategies/Methods
The learners should understand what obesity is and the implications of suffering from it.	Definition of obesity Health risks posed by obesity (Broussard et al., 2009).	The illustration will be done with the help of slide shows and posters elaborating both in words and graphical the risks associated with obesity.
The persons engaged in the learning process should be able to identify the kind of diets they take and the health risks they pose.	List the kinds of unhealthy diets that pose threat to obesity (Dattilo, 2009).	Use posters, engage learners in discussions and provide slide shows with evidential information as to the risks posed by imbalanced diets.
The individuals engaged in learning will cite various healthy foods they know of	A list of affordable and easily available healthy foods will be generated	Posters displaying various healthy foods and statistics of communities that have successfully implemented the same will be used.
The learners should be able to identify various cultural behaviors as well as social stigma and self-esteem issues which pose a risk to overall health and more especially make them vulnerable to obesity.	Various cultural beliefs social stigma and self-esteem make the community vulnerable to health problems with a special focus on obesity.	Posters will be used to list the cultures as well as social stigma and self-esteem and on its basis weigh the merits and demerits of the culture.

Creativity: The teaching plan sought practical ways of addressing challenges powered by obesity in the community. Noting the importance of culture to the community, the plan first sought to similarly, make the community and hence believe that obesity is a serious concern issue and as such should be avoided before proceeding to address the diagnosed issues.

Planned Evaluation of Objectives (Outcome Evaluation): The plan will be evaluated on a short-term and long-term basis. Short term basis will involve discussions to establish the level of understanding. Long-term evaluation will involve collection of obesity trends within the community to see whether implementation is being done.

Planned Evaluation of Goal: the goal will be evaluated through an in-depth analysis which will involve conducting interviews to establish how various factors influenced the statistical outcome observed.

Planned Evaluation of Lesson and Teacher: the teacher will evaluate progress through question and answer sessions.

Barriers: The major barrier to teaching is culture, which the community is deeply entrenched in. Dispelling cultural beliefs and entrenching newer beliefs will be the most difficult challenge.

Communication: Presentation will begin via a short documentary on the lives of persons suffering from obesity, followed by an interactive forum on what the learners think about obesity.

References

Broussard, B. A. et al. (2009). Toward comprehensive obesity prevention programs in Native American communities. Obes Res, 3, p. 289S–97S. 69.

Dattilo, A. M. (2009). Dietary fat and its relationship to body weight. Nutr Today, 53, p. 13–19.

Indian Health Service. (1996). Trends in Indian health. Rockville, MD: US Department of Health and Human Services.

Maurer, F. A., & Smith, C. M. (2009). Community/Public health nursing practice: Health for families and populations (4th ed). St. Louis, MO: Saunders Elsevier.

National Center for Health Statistics. (2009). Healthy People 2000 final review. Hyattsville, MD: Public Health Service

Public Health Service. (2008). Healthy people 2010: national health promotion and disease prevention objectives. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, 1990. US Department of Health and Human Services publication PHS 90-50212

Troiano, R. P. & Flegal, K. M. (2007). Overweight children and adolescents: description, epidemiology, and demographics. Pediatrics, 101, p. 497–504.

Welty, T. K. (2008). Health implications of obesity in American Indians and Alaska Natives. Am J Clin Nutr, 53, p. 1616S–20S.