Importance of Childhood Obesity

Importance of Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity has become a worldwide problem. Overweight children are more prone to catch other diseases which can deteriorate their health. Obesity can affect the self- esteem and activity levels of children, while in later life it is a leading risk factor for type 2 diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease(Kerr and Penn, 2014, p. 16) The purpose of this paper is to provide information about childhood obesity and different interventions to help lower the number of children affected.

Childhood Obesity

Children whose BMI is greater than the 95th percentile on standard growth charts are considered obese and are at increases risk for serious comorbid conditions and chronic diseases, many of which are historically ?adult' diseases(Geer, Haemer, Krajicek, Porter, 2014, p. 528). Preventing the disease has become a very important aspect in the world and in the healthcare field. Three main themes were identified: parental, receptiveness, knowledge, education and resource constraints, and time, priority and continuity constraints (Hunt, 2017, p 18). To control the number of children affected different interventions are used to prevent the disease before it even happens.

Some prevention techniques are encouraging increased physical activities, healthy eating habits, and limited television time. Prevention techniques are influenced by clinical judgment, teamwork and collaboration, quality improvement, information management, and following legal and ethical guidelines.

Clinical Judgment Intervention

A nurse can illustrate clinical judgment by making sure the patient is meeting their caloric and protein intake if they are receiving their feeding through a tube. Also providing different community resources to parent that will help them with different prevention techniques. Another intervention would be doing routine weights and the nurses can enroll patients in different facility sponsored programs or amenities such as a facility gym or different after school programs that the facility sponsors. The nurse can follow up with the patient and the effectiveness the different weight management techniques have been.

Quality Improvement Intervention

An intervention for quality improvement is to make sure parents are bringing their children in for their follow up appointments. This quality improvement intervention tracks the attendance rate of patient seen for a follow up appointment. For example the enforcement of attending follow up appointments would improve the effectiveness of the weight management technique.

Information Management Intervention

Technology plays a vital role in information management especially in today's society. The advancement of technology have aided in providing variety of prevention techniques for patient who suffer from obesity. For example smart phone and tablets can help parents keep track of their kids' caloric intake, provide nutritional facts, and they can also use apps that allow them to personalize their goal to what they would like it to be.

Teamwork and Collaboration Intervention

Teamwork and collaborations with multiple healthcare disciplines is vital in the healthcare setting. For example the nurse can collaborate with the dietician to help come up with different meal plans and appealing food for different ages. Also the nurse can also collaborate with physical therapy about different exercise that focuses on different parts of the body.

Legal and Ethical Intervention

Some children obesity level is so severe that they have to go through surgery. This can become a problem with the parent and the parent might not agree with the child going through with surgery, but because surgery is the best option for the child the nurse has to then be an advocate for the child and possibly even letting the court deal with it.

Conclusion

This paper provides information about obesity and the different techniques that are used in treating obesity. It also provides you with different interventions that influence patient centered care such as clinical judgments, quality improvement, collaboration and teamwork, information management, and legal and ethical.

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