Canada is well-known for innumerable fantastic things; nevertheless, healthy body weight and way of life has not been one of them. Due to way of life, news outlets, routine, nutrition, family, value system, and health factors. Nearly a quarter of Canadian individuals have a BMI of 30 or more, classifying them as obese (Harsany & Gariepy-Assal, 2019). That is a staggering statistic. In 2021, around 29 percent of people aged 18 and over were obese, while 36 percent were overweight (Lafave et al., 2021). This pattern is being passed on to our youngsters, and the statistics are rapidly expanding. Obesity affects about one out of every seven children and adolescents. Childhood obesity is now expected to spawn a whole generation of people with early-onset chronic illness, impairment, and a shorter lifespan (Kokkvoll et al., 2020). Although medical, pharmacological, and psychological therapies are available for overweight persons, they are frequently band-aid remedies. Interventions centered on lifestyle modifications rather than fixes will be more successful, especially with a larger prevalence (Byrne et al., 2018). This paper will take one specific group of the Canadian population (young boys from Grande Prairie City) and pursue an education-based care plan from assessment to evaluation.
Research
The cohort I have chosen to educate is ten to sixteen-year-old boys from Grande Prairie City in Alberta, Canada. This group was chosen because Grande Prairie City has one of the highest obesity rates in the country, with more than 30 percent of the population being obese (Harsany & Gariepy-Assal, 2019). In comparison to other localities, Grande Prairie has a larger proportion of sedentary persons. This demographic profile helps better comprehend the region’s current and future health needs. As children progress through life, they have particular inclinations and necessitates that must be met. Children grow increasingly autonomous during Erikson’s ‘Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt’ stage, including self-feeding (Gross, 2020). If a child does not see that their caregiver believes in them and that they are capable and responsible for more, they will develop emotions of shame and doubt about their eating patterns and habits. This may impact who they become in the future, and they may develop an unhealthy lifestyle or become overweight or obese as a consequence (Gross, 2020). According to Erikson’s theory of Psychosocial Development, school-aged children are in the phase of Industry vs Inferiority. If they fail in their academic and social pursuits at school, they may feel inadequate, leading to issues with self-esteem and interpersonal skills. Being overweight or obese has a negative connotation since obesity isolates these children from their peers and may hinder them from engaging in activities that would help them control their body weight and stay healthy. Also, low-income families in Grande Prairie City are a prevalent cause of obesity because they lack the finances or time to prioritize healthy living (Ball et al., 2019). Healthy resources are unavailable, unaffordable, and inaccessible to these families.
I am optimistic that by educating children about good habits at a young age, we can successfully break the pattern. This is especially important because childhood obesity has skyrocketed in the last three decades and is three times greater in males than in females (Kokkvoll et al., 2020). Children who are dissatisfied with their weight, according to kidshealth.org, are more inclined to continue with their unhealthy behaviors and are at a higher risk of anxiety disorders and drug abuse. Obesity is the most significant cause of early mortality since multiple health problems are associated. Obesity is also associated with 25 to 30 percent of malignancies, and 70 to 75 percent of obese youngsters have at least one cardiovascular disease risk factor (Karacabeyli et al., 2018). My top objective will be to improve movement in everyday life for this group. We can tackle this developing pandemic by integrating entertaining or minor improvements.
Teaching Resource
The different factors for today’s sedative lifestyle include habits, greater attractiveness of video games entertainment, more access to technology, and regimen. Increased exercise in everyday life is a primary learning requirement for this group. According to WHO (2020), preventing children from getting obese requires parents or caregivers to change how they exercise and spend their time. Children will not regard the movement as labor if healthy choices are made pleasant or habitual, and the goal is to instill this mentality in parents and teach it to their children (Bull et al., 2020). According to Resor et al. (2021), school-aged and teenage children gain the most when their teachers provide an opportunity to address health issues, understand their emotions, and participate with them in teaching through lecture and group discussion. As a result, I will be instructing through lectures and group discussion, accompanied by a pamphlet that they may take home. The pamphlet will be simple to read, comprehensive, and up to date. The lecture and group discourse will enhance cognitive understanding by assisting students in gaining new information and knowledge while encouraging active involvement and peer support. I will promote psychomotor learning by promoting individual tasks, such as setting reasonable objectives to complete at home. The ultimate objective is to promote long-term mindset change through emotional learning through group conversation, which will allow students to gain support from their peers and benefit from their experiences.
Evaluation
I will use a pamphlet for this lesson since the children will take printouts home with them if they choose. There will be less text and more visuals to meet the age bracket. In addition, I will go through the pamphlet with them to combine audio and visual students into the classroom (Byrne et al., 2018). I will promote a brainstorming workshop, questions, and opinions throughout the session to encourage participation. The pamphlet will cover a variety of exercises and sports and, more significantly, techniques to make subtle daily improvements that will improve health and quality of life.
The three questions the target audience would answer to evaluate my teaching resource after the lesson include:
- What are the health consequences of obesity in childhood?
- How can obesity in children be prevented or controlled?
- Why is childhood obesity an exclusively essential topic to study?
These questions will enable each student to describe one activity that they could be intrigued by and two strategies to boost their physical activity in their daily lives. I will also send out a survey two weeks later, asking students to explain any modifications they have made to their activity, what aspects of my instruction were beneficial, and what I might have improved. This will include asking end-of-class queries to assist the children in synthesizing the knowledge and drawing conclusions about the learning process and their perspectives on the importance of adopting proper behaviors to prevent obesity. Then I will gather information on how students replied to questions that were posed during class and the kind of questions they asked me. These notes will aid me in preparing for and revising future courses.
I am grateful for the opportunity to imitate, to some degree, the teaching process that a community healthcare worker would use to educate the people in the community where they serve. I was amazed at how detailed it was and how impressed I was with the content and the amount of work and intricacy involved in tailoring our educational product to match the needs of a particular population. However, going above and beyond to think of methods to empower the community to make those changes was also challenging. I believe it must originate from the inside, but I am unsure how to achieve long-term empowerment within the group.
Conclusion
Conclusively, it is clear that childhood obesity has taken hold in most world regions, with far-reaching consequences. Obesity in teens is linked to unhealthy eating habits. The popularity of fast food, particularly snacks, has had a significant role in the growth of obesity. Furthermore, a lack of physical activity among teens causes many calories to accumulate in their bodies in the form of lipids, exposing young people to the hazards of obesity. Nonetheless, many activities such as obesity programs and other government interventions can help to lower the incidence of childhood obesity. Let us join hands in ensuring childhood obesity is eliminated from our communities.
Childhood Obesity Pamphlet
References
Ball, G. D., Savu, A., & Kaul, P. (2019). Changes in the prevalence of overweight, obesity, and severe obesity between 2010 and 2017 in preschoolers: A population‐based study. Pediatric obesity, 14(11), e12561.
Bull, F. C., Al-Ansari, S. S., Biddle, S., Borodulin, K., Buman, M. P., Cardon, G., … & Willumsen, J. F. (2020). World Health Organization 2020 guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour. British journal of sports medicine, 54(24), 1451-1462.
Byrne, J. L. S., Cameron Wild, T., Maximova, K., Browne, N. E., Holt, N. L., Cave, A. J., … & Ball, G. D. C. (2018). A brief eHealth tool delivered in primary care to help parents prevent childhood obesity: a randomized controlled trial. Pediatric obesity, 13(11), 659-667.
Gross, Y. (2020). Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development. The Wiley Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences: Models and Theories, 179-184.
Harsany, É., & Gariepy-Assal, L. (2019). Obesity | Caring for Kids New to Canada. Kidsnewtocanada.ca. Retrieved 21 January 2022, from https://kidsnewtocanada.ca/health-promotion/obesity.
Karacabeyli, D., Allender, S., Pinkney, S., & Amed, S. (2018). Evaluation of complex community‐based childhood obesity prevention interventions. Obesity reviews, 19(8), 1080-1092.
Kokkvoll, A. S., Grimsgaard, S., Flægstad, T., Andersen, L. B., Ball, G. D., Wilsgaard, T., & Njølstad, I. (2020). No additional long‐term effect of group vs individual family intervention in the treatment of childhood obesity—A randomised trial. Acta Paediatrica, 109(1), 183-192.
Lafave, L. M., Webster, A. D., McConnell, C., Van Wyk, N., & Lafave, M. R. (2021). The Impact of COVID-19 on Eating Environments and Activity in Early Childhood Education and Care in Alberta, Canada: A Cross-Sectional Study. Nutrients, 13(12), 4247.
Resor, J., Hegde, A. V., & Stage, V. C. (2021). Pre-service early childhood educators’ perceived barriers and supports to nutrition education. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 42(4), 345-361.
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