Childhood Obesity: Primary Prevention

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Childhood Obesity: Primary Prevention Natella Rusu Grand Canyon University: NRS-427V March 28, 2014 Childhood obesity: Primary Prevention Today, childhood obesity has become not just a health issue, but a spreading epidemic. The main health concerns for overweight and obese children can lead to long term consequences of heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol level, and emotional imbalance. The concept of primary prevention of diseases is to educate the public on health risk factors for certain diseases and promote healthy lifestyle . According to Edelman and Mandel (2010), the health promotion is " the science and art of helping people change their lifestyle to move toward a state of optimal health". This paper will summarize…show more content…
As a community health nurse it is an important aspect to inform the focus group on negative short and long term health effects of obesity in children. The daily food caloric intake, types and amounts of food, eating habits, emphasizing the importance of avoiding junk food that is high in fats and sugar, and daily exercise strategies will be included in the teaching plan. The goal of this presentation is to stress the effects of obesity and provide this focus group with prevention…show more content…
Social learning theory is about behavior that is learned from the environment through observational learning which could not occur unless cognitive processes are at work. This theory suggests that "humans are active information processors and think about the relationship between their behavior and its consequences". Since this focus group consisted of parents with children, this theory was appropriate to utilize. Generally, children observe the people around them that are behaving in different ways and perceive them as models. Those influential models include parents within the family, TV characters/commercials , friends, and school teachers which provide examples of behavior. By paying close attention to those models, children tend to encode their attitude and develop their behavioral habits . When a child copies a model’s behavior and the consequences are rewarding, it is believed that the child is likely to continue performing that behavior (McLeod, 2011). For this reason, parents with children were selected for this education session as they play a significant role in helping their children to make a positive behavioral change in learning it for themselves

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