Child obesity Assignment instructions
Step 1.
You are required to identify at least EIGHT SCHOLARLY ARTICLES in academic journals to better understand the subject matter. Students must read all of the articles and organize the themes into a comprehensive literature review, including an APA style reference page.
Please note: A successful literature review does not simply summarize each article, but it identifies trends and themes throughout the body of research. The student’s findings should be synthesized and analyzed in a way that demonstrates critical thinking skills.
Step 2.
Survey Methodology
Using the topic that you chose in step 1, develop a survey of 12 questions that you could administer to friends, family members, coworkers, or classmates.
For example, if your topic was “Best Practices in HIPAA Trainings for Healthcare Managers”, you might develop questions like:
What do you look for in a professional training?
On a scale of 1-10, how interested would you be in receiving more advanced training related to HIPAA?
How many hours of HIPAA training have you received in your career?
If your topic was “Benefits of preventive medicine”, you might ask questions like:
How many times a year do you visit your primary care physician?
What kinds of conversations has your doctor had with you about prevention of chronic disease?
Guidelines:
1. Develop at least 12 questions to submit for a grade.
a. Include 2-3 demographic questions.
b. You do not have to include any qualitative (open-ended) questions, but if you choose to, do not include any more than 2 questions that are qualitative in nature.
c. Keep in mind that Step 3 of the project requires you to calculate some basic statistics from your survey results. You will need to be able to calculate things like, “30% of my participants expressed interest in advanced HIPAA training” or “I asked my participants how many doctor visits they have had in the past year, and the average answer was 2”. Design your questions in a way that will allow you perform some basic calculations.
2. Administer your survey to at least 6 people. Choose anyone you like.
3. Write 100-200 words about how you selected your sample. Write about how you felt when administering the survey. Were there questions that you wanted to edit or change after you started administering the survey? Did your participants find any questions confusing or difficult to answer? What would you do differently if you were to repeat this activity in the future?
Step 3. Results (at least 300 words)
Statistics
Including a visual display of data
Step 4. Analysis (at least 400 words)
Implications of your findings
Step 5. Critique Your Work (at least 500 words)
Discuss ethical concerns
Would your survey study pass the IRB’s approval?
Sample Solution
Why is child obesity becoming an epidemic in the United States?
Obesity refers to accumulation of excessive body fats that pose health risks to individuals. It is a medical problem that puts an individual at risk of other diseases such as heart diseases and hypertension. Obesity is basically energy imbalance between calories, fats and sugars consumed and calories expended. In that case there should be a balance in intake of energy-foods high in fat and sugar and the ones used/expended to prevent obesity. Individuals should as well actively participate in physical activities to burn excess fats.
Parents have a significant role to play in obesity among American children as they are responsible for their children’s health and wellbeing, and they play a major role in shaping their children’s’ eating and activity habits. The parents should check on the food they feed to their children and avoid too much consumption of processed and fast foods by providing healthy food options at home. American parents should be actively involved in ensuring that their children partake in physical activities and limit screen time for better health. Parents can create a healthy eating culture for their children by talking to their children about healthy eating and body image in a positive way to make healthy living part of the children’s lifestyle from childhood.
There are many reasons for the rise in child obesity rates among American children. These include;
- Unhealthy diets – many of the American children have poor diet with majority of them consuming processed and fast foods which are high in calories, fat and sugar, which are key components for excessive weight gain which result to obesity. In addition, most of the children do not take enough fruits, vegetables and whole grains which are healthy foods important for maintaining healthy weight.
- Lack of exercise-this is another major contributing factor to childhood obesity. Children today are much likely to be inactive in physical activities. They spend most of their free time playing video games, watching television, using their tablets and computers. This lack of physical activities can lead to weight gain.
- Genetic factors-genetics also play a role in childhood obesity where if one or both of the child’s parents are obese, the child is more likely to be obese as well.
- Medication side effects-children under some certain types of medication can also gain excess weight due to increased appetite, decrease in metabolism, fluid retention, decreased level of activity and mood changes caused by thee medication.
- Psychological factors-there are many psychological factors that lead to obesity in American children including emotional problems such as depression, anxiety and stress. Stress and anxiety can lead to hormones changes which affects metabolism and result to weight gain. Emotional eating resulting from stress and anxiety can as well lead to weight gain.
Examples of medication conditions that can lead to obesity include; hypothyroidism, sleep apnea and Cushing’s syndrome.
References:
Skinner, A. C., Ravanbakht, S. N., Skelton, J. A., Perrin, E. M., & Armstrong, S. C. (2018). Prevalence of obesity and severe obesity in US children, 1999-2016. Pediatrics, 141(3).
Lifshitz, F. (2008). Obesity in children. Journal of clinical research in pediatric endocrinology, 1(2), 53.
Dietz, W. H., & Gortmaker, S. L. (2001). Preventing obesity in children and adolescents. Annual review of public health, 22, 337.
