...Teenager Obesity and Societal Bias NUR/440Health Assessment and Promotion of Vulnerable Population September 19, 2011 Teenager Obesity and Societal Bias Obesity is a well-recognized disease, and childhood obesity is a long-term risk factor for adult morbidity and social disabilities (Flodmark, Lissau, & Pietrobelli, 2005) Weight prejudice is rampant in the health care, according to Puhl 2009, there is no antidiscrimination laws against weight discrimination. The common thought that obese patients did that to themselves triggers negative attitudes, societal stigma and/or unfair treatment of the overweight or obese patient. Obesity is prevalent in our society with 30% of the adult population considered obese. Within that population, teenagers are even more vulnerable than adults and can be more deeply affected by compromised preventative care, whether because of themselves or society (Puhl, 2009). According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2011), among U.S. high school students * 12% are obese. * 29% drink at least one soda a day. * 23% do not have 60 minutes of physical activity on any day during the survey. * 67% did not attend PE classes daily when they were in school. * 33% watched television three or more hours per day on an average school day. * 25% used computers three or more hours per day on an average school day. Because body fat levels change as children grow and mature, doctors use gender-specific BMI-for-age charts...
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...mechanisms to improve the health of society. This papers tries to find the relation with a minute but important application of this advancement; Prenatal Care for better growth and development of children. It tackles the question of whether the impact of prenatal care is significant on an infant’s health or not. The data used is a cross-sectional data of 1832 observations, with 29 variables. Controlling for different relevant variables like demographics, age, education etc. we try to find a causal relation between the impact of prenatal care and birth weight. And in the end we conclude our results that a positive relationship is indeed present and significant, leaving room for data limitations and possible solutions for future research. IMPACT OF PRENATAL CARE ON BIRTH WEIGHT Shehryar Amin Waqas Sheikh Hafiz Moazam Ali Nasir Javed Econometrics 2 Introduction Birth weight is a key factor for a child’s health and wellness. Not only it is important to prevent infant mortality rate but also a healthier birth weight helps reduce the increased risks of illnesses faced by babies born with low birth weight. Also in a statistical brief for the state center for health statistics of North Carolina1, it was found that compared with children born with normal birth weight, low birth weight children were more at a risk for poorer health and also low educational outcomes through childhood and adolescence. They are more likely to have special health care needs and require additional...
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...Can the Attitudes of Health Care Providers Impact the Health of Obese Patients? Introduction Significant research has shown that health care providers hold strong negative attitudes towards obese patients. The effects of these negative attitudes can have major impacts on the overall health of these patients including; lowered self esteem, depression, increased stress and a lower quality of life when compared to a patient at a normal weight (Phelan et al., 2015). To dig deeper into this issue, it is important to find and examine studies and/or publications on the subject. The article that the author of this paper has chosen is called “Attitudes of Health Care Professionals toward Female Obese Patients”. This is a quantitative research article and experimental study to determine the common stigmatizing attitudes that health care professionals hold when caring for obese patients. The article hypothesizes that nurses show higher levels of negative attitudes toward obese patients. The research question that the author of this paper poses is as follows; does recognizing certain biases and attitudes that health care providers have toward obese patients help improve the overall quality of care for them (Phelan et al., 2015)? Methods of Study The study sampled 682 health care professionals (nurses, physicians, therapists and others) at a large German university hospital. The majority of the study participants were women with a mean age of 36 years. The participants were asked...
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...least ten to thirty pages long, and must be of interest to the author. The assignment then required that the presentation be formatted clearly, and that the content must be sound, meaning adhering to APA guidelines as well as expressing the ideas and bias reduction in language of the content. The contents of this paper will touch on the statistical part of the paper chosen from a scholarly source, and discuss whether or not the paper supported the conclusions it drew through statistical analysis as well as the state of the content, meaning was it biased or misleading in any way. Potential Link between Obesity, Age and Socioeconomic Status The paper chosen for this assignment focuses on analysis that uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to explore how body weight and obesity change as a person progresses in age. The presentation of the material is stylistically sound in which it meets proper APA standards language bias, and expressing ideas, the content is formatted clearly, and is it stylistically sound (Baum, 2007). The research and data gathered on obesity is an important study for many different reasons. One of the first reasons would be the significance obesity has on a person’s overall health and well-being, making obesity an important risk factor for diseases such as diabetes, and asthma, hypertension, high cholesterol, gallbladder disease, and coronary...
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...Applied Health Econometrics Lecture 5 Recap • What is the problem with using OLS in the binary model se>ng? • How can Whites corrected standard errors help in this situa@on? • What is the main difference between logit and probit binary models? • How can we choose between logit and probit binary models? Health produc@on func@ons • Health is a broad concept and is an output or outcome of many health-‐affec@ng variables or inputs. • The produc@on of health involves combining resources (or health inputs) to produce or aIain a desired stock of health in each period of @me given one’s efficiency and other technical constraints. HS = f(HC, LS, BIO, ENV, SES, E) where: • HS = Health status of an individual or popula@on • HC = Health care • LS = A set of lifestyle variables such as diet and exercise • BIO = Biological...
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.... . . . Figure 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Figure 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DISCUSSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUTHORS’ CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHARACTERISTICS OF STUDIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DATA AND ANALYSES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Analysis 1.1. Comparison 1 ANY FORM OF PSYCHOEDUCATION vs STANDARD CARE, Outcome 1 Compliance: 1a. With medication - non-compliance. . . . . . . . ....
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...similar studies in case they have uncovered specific design limitations or useful results, and this information is helpful in understanding the context of one's own study. We believe that known risks include prematurity, poor prenatal care, low socioeconomic status, non-white ethnicity, large size of the mother, younger or older mothers, smoking, alcohol consumption and a host of other factors. Electric and magnetic field exposures are not known risk factors but have not been studied extensively. Therefore we wish to study them. Cohort Study The "What will happen to me?" study follows a group of healthy people with different levels of exposure and assesses what happens to their health over time. It is a desirable design because exposure precedes the health outcome — a condition necessary for causation — and is less subject to bias because exposure is evaluated before the health status is known. The cohort study is also expensive, time-consuming and the most logistically difficult of all the studies. It is most useful for relatively common diseases. To assess suitability, we find out the commonality of the disease we wish to study. Does it occur in 10 percent of all births, 1 percent of births, or 0.001 percent of births? For example, if low weight occurs in 10 percent or more of all births, then we might investigate a relatively small group of newborns, say 200 to 400, and characterize...
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..."Artificial Sweeteners." School of Public Health. 2015. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-drinks/artificial-sweeteners/. This citation describes the health benefits and concerns surrounding artificial sweeteners. It was written by Harvard University's School of Public Health which is renowned for their research. The article looks at a wide variety of studies surrounding the health benefits and concerns about artificial sweeteners. All of these studies were conducted within the past decade and include the most up-to-date information. The author covers both viewpoints with the cited studies and avoids including their own opinions. They conclude that the health effects of sweeteners are inconclusive as research has produced...
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...Matthew Stark Sociology 422 Professor Bradshaw 5 May 2015 Childhood Obesity: Is there an elucidation? 1. Describe the Policy, Program or Topic: The growth in childhood obesity over the past several decades, together with the associated health problems and costs, is raising serious concern among health care professionals, policy experts, children’s advocates, and parents. Childhood obesity is defined “in terms of body mass index (BMI), which in turn is defined as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared” (Anderson). According to the Obesity Action Coalition “a child is defined as “affected by obesity” if their body mass index-for-age (or BMI-for-age) percentile is greater than 95 percent. A child is defined as “overweight” if their BMI-for-age percentile is greater than 85 percent and less than 95 percent.” BMI has become the frontrunner for measuring a child’s weight condition, but only a physician can best determine and diagnoses weight status in children. Obesity is not just a problem in the United States but around the world as well. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey have been recording overweight and obesity in children since the early 1960’s. During 1971–74 about five percent of children aged two to nineteen years were obese but it has increase significantly throughout the years. By 1980 and 1988-94, the numbers nearly doubled in children and between the years of 1998-2002, nearly fifteen percent of United States children have become...
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...overweight and obesity than Non – Hispanic Whites. “In accordance with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services information in 2008, Hispanic Americans were 1.2 times as likely to be obese than Non-Hispanic Whites. Among Mexican American women, 73 percent are overweight or obese, as compared to only 61.6 percent of the general female population. In 2007 – 2008 Mexican American children were 1.4 times more likely to be overweight as Non-Hispanic White children. In 2007, Hispanic adults were 50% less likely to engage in active physical activity as Non-Hispanic Whites” (OMH – Source: CDC, 2010) Impact of obesity and overweight The problem with obesity and overweight has affected the Hispanic race in many ways. Obesity and overweight are two different problems. A person with a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 25-29.9 is considered overweight and a person with a BMI of less than equal to 30 is considered obese. Based on the information gathered by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of minority health, more than 80% of the Hispanic overweight population tends to develop diabetes. Tests were driven in order to develop the hypothesis. Out of 80% people who suffer from type 2 diabetes are considered to overweight or obese. Obesity is an enormous issue that affects the body and health not only physically but internally. Obese people are more likely to suffer from many health problems such as high blood pressure, high levels of blood fats, and cholesterol, which are more...
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...building momentum in the health care arena for some time now. Qualitative nursing research is valuable to knowledge related to evidenced based practice. For instance, human responses are studied and questions related to potential or actual health problems or diseases are answered. Concepts and Phenomenon are studied and the results are interpretive. Qualitative nursing research is valuable but because outcomes and data aren’t precisely measured, as in quantitative research, critiques are more frequent. “There is a growing body of research to support the view that health care providers are biased in their approach to caring for obese patients” (Creel, 2012). I am providing a qualitative nursing research critique on the article, “Stigmatization of Overweight Patients by Nurses”. Purpose and Problem Identification The focus and purpose of this qualitative nursing research study is to investigate and explore the phenomenon of the stigmatization of overweight patients by their nurses or the nursing staff. The purpose of this qualitative nursing research study is clearly stated in the abstract and under the purpose subheading within the article. The problems that lead to the production of this article was that the increasing number of discrimination reports from obese persons in the United States of America. “Obese individuals are highly stigmatized and face multiple forms of prejudice and discrimination because of their weight. The prevalence of weight discrimination in the...
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...epidemic affecting millions of the world population. Childhood obesity is especially worrisome as it is linked to higher incidence of health issues in adulthood (Lakshman, Elks, & Ong, 2012). There are many factors to look at when assessing the prevalence of childhood obesity, including culture, socio-economic status, food availability, activity, and genetics. To better understand this problem, it is essential to understand the factors that lead to obesity, how obesity is studied, and what are ways to help reduce the occurrence of obesity. Through epidemiology, this health concern can be better understood and provide the information needed to generate a plan of action to help reduce the risk factors that lead to childhood obesity. Epidemiology is “the study of the occurrence and distribution of health–related states or events and specified populations, including the study of the determinants influencing such states, and the application of this knowledge to control the health problems” (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2012, pg 255). Through epidemiology the questions of who, what, where, when, how, and why can be investigated to offer information about the dissemination or patterns of health measures. The Epidemiological Triangle allows epidemiologists to understand the relationships between agent, host, and the environment when looking at a specific health concern. When considering childhood obesity, the agent could be viewed as an energy imbalance, where the energy expended is less than...
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...towards those who stand out or have unique attributes. Especially when compared to our culture of power that is often white, healthy, and traditional. The following will define, describe the treatment of, and perceive the lives of two of these stigmatized groups, those with obesity and those who are LGBT, to further detail the similarities and differences of their daily struggles. One clear, thematic, distinction is the blatant external identification of obese individuals against the hidden sexual stigma of those who are LGBT. Group Definition Weight stigma is a social stigma in which those who are overweight or obese are targets of prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behaviors. This stigma is present across many dimensions in our society and can be seen in interpersonal, institutional, organizational, and cultural discrimination. Alarmingly, research has discerned the weight stigma has become more prevalent in our society, as weight based discrimination has increased 66% from the 1990’s into the 2000’s (Andreyeva, T., Puhl, R. M., & Brownell, K. D., 2008). Despite this group actually being a majority across the world, they are still stigmatized and thought to be the blame for their obesity. The stereotypes these people face are exclusively negative, as additional research has showed that overweight people are accredited multiple negative stereotypes such as being sloppy, disagreeable, lazy, lacking self-discipline, and less competent (Puhl, R. M., & Heuer, C. A., 2009). Others...
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...children’s weight status, diet, and health. The content was presented clearly beginning with an abstract layout, introduction, materials, methods, and ending with results. The categorical results are clearly presented to include mean, median, t-test, and anova. The information clearly stated the results and bias was limited in the research. In each result a breakdown of what each result presented to include the standard deviation. The statistical analysis includes sample characteristics of 257 low-income mothers and their children are provided in table (Dammann, Smith, & Richards, 2011). The table began with a breakdown of descriptive characteristics from gender, race, household characteristics to include size, education, income, employment, living situations, and if the participants participated in food stamps. Based on the human service research of their children’s health, diet, and weight presented accurate analyses needed to test and research the subjects based on the health issues of children. The research was conducted correctly, there were no manipulation of numbers or data to conclude a specific outcome. Dammann, Smith, and Richards (2011) stated that most of the mothers significantly underestimated their child’s height and weight. The results also founded that overweight children can suffer physically, psychosocially, and the risk of obesity during his or her adulthood. The other result concluded that low-income populations have poor access to medical care so the role...
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...Childhood Obesity Abstract Many early life risk factors for childhood obesity are more prevalent among blacks and Hispanics than among whites and may explain the higher prevalence of obesity among racial/ethnic minority children. Eliminating racial/ethnic disparities in health and health care is a national priority, and obesity is a prime target. During the last 30 years in the United States, the prevalence of obesity among children has dramatically increased, sparing no age group. Obesity in childhood is associated with adverse cardio-metabolic outcomes such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and type II diabetes and with other long-term adverse outcomes, including both physical and psychosocial consequences. By the preschool years, racial/ethnic disparities in obesity prevalence are already present, suggesting that disparities in childhood obesity prevalence have their origins in the earliest stages of life. Several risk factors during pregnancy are associated with increased risk of offspring obesity, including excessive maternal gestational weight gain, gestational diabetes, and smoking during pregnancy, antenatal depression, and biological stress. During infancy and early childhood, rapid infant weight gain, infant feeding practices, sleep duration, child’s diet, physical activity, and sedentary practices are associated with the development of obesity. Studies have found substantial racial/ethnic differences in many of these early life risk factors for childhood obesity....
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