Community Action Plan with Tri-fold brochure and 5 slide powerpoint Essay

Community Action Plan with Tri-fold brochure and 5 slide powerpoint - Essay Example Obesity is an epidemic that affects people not only in the US but worldwide. Nearly 59 million adults are obese and the percentage of children who are obese has doubled in the past twenty years. Obesity is a chronic disease that can result in serious health problems to its victims. Obesity among children in the US has serious health and social implication. These effects are all over including Wheat Ridge Colorado. Though a recent study ranked Colorado as lowest in obesity rate, there is still a problem. Obesity rate has doubled from 10.7 percent in 1995(Nathalia, 2012, p. 1). This increase in obesity rate in Colorado drives the motives of this paper. This community action plan therefore aims at reducing obesity rate in Wheat Ridge as a step to contribute to the overall obesity rate in Colorado. Symptoms Obesity is mainly due to one being overweight. Obesity among children and adults is on the rise in Colorado and all over the US. Children are taking more calories than before. They ar e eating many less healthy foods and drinking beverages that are more sugary. The problem becomes worse by the fact these children no longer walk or bike to school than it was several years ago. The situation is therefore very clear from this perspective. More sugar in the body plus less energy expenditure equal obesity especially in children. Many evidences suggest that obesity is mainly due to a combination of both genetics and environmental factors. People who eat food with many calories and reduce less energy through physical activity are more likely be overweight than other children. Obesity may have a variety of biological syndromes however; some degree of BMI is genetic. Obesity is mainly due to an increase in weight gain in excess of the expenditure(Trujillo, 2007, p. 3). Diagnosis The Colorado Children Campaign defines Obesity by the measurement of the â€Å"body mass index† (BMI). This is a measure of a person’s body weight in relation to the height. Diagnosi s of this public health issues involves comparing the BMI values with standard references of the same measurements. According to the Colorado Children Campaign (CDC), children with BMIs above the 85th percentile are at risk of becoming obese. Those with BMIs over 95th percentile are already overweight. This diagnosis of obesity is from the 2000 CDC growth charts for US(Trujillo, 2007, p. 1). In 2005, about 29 percent of children in Colorado between the age of 2 and 14 were overweight or at risk of becoming overweight. During the same year, 53 percent of Colorado adults were overweight or obese. If this trend continues at the same rate, then by 2020, 76 percent of all the residents in Colorado will be obese. Obesity can result in many health problems for instance in Colorado obesity is associated with a third of premature deaths. Obesity is because of many factors which act together to cause the health problem. One of the biggest causes of overweight in kids is the increase in the co nsumption of beverages with high sugar content for instance the increase in consumption of soda among most kids. Increased access to fast foods is also contributing to the high levels of calories in obese people. Most of the kids today spent most of their time watching television instead of engaging in play and games. This reduces the amount of energy expend thereby making such kids susceptible