improving healthy eating and promoting physical activity

 improving healthy eating and promoting physical activity

Background

This review is a systematic study targeting physical activity and dietary behaviour among children in European primary and secondary schools. In the analysis, School‐based interventions promoting both physical activity and healthy eating in Europe, Debourdeaudhuij et al. (2011) systematically evaluate the evidence of school-based intervention in dietary and physical activity. The authors’ main idea is to promote healthy weight in high school and secondary school children across Europe. The objective of the evaluation was to prevent childhood obesity from an early age in the life of school children. The authors’ main idea is to analyse school-based interventions aimed at improving healthy eating and promoting physical activity which the author states have had an almost futile effect in reducing childhood obesity.

Criteria

Physical education and appropriate nutritional interventions are the basis by which the study was conducted. The participants targeted by these latter interventions were primary children aged six to twelve years old and secondary children aged twelve to eighteen years old. The review of school-based interventions targeting physical education and dietary habits was drawn from eleven studies which beat the inclusion criteria; six primary schools, and five secondary school children. The outcome was measured through the behaviour, diet and exercise, weight-related, Body Mass Index, and other obesity indicators in children such as skinfold.

The objective of the study

The study reveals that diet and physical activity, alongside other obesity indicators such as body mass index and behavioural determinants, were used to evaluate this intervention. The idea behind carrying out systematic evaluation is the increase in cases of obesity among children around the globe. The findings of this evaluation imply that physical activity, combined with appropriate eating habits enables an effective mechanism in curbing the prevalence of obesity among children. This study was conducted among primary school children aged six to twelve years and secondary school children aged twelve to eighteen years old in Europe.

Regarding the interventions, the authors’ suggest that studies should increase follow-up activity to enhance the suitability of the outlined environmental interventions such as physical activities during break time and after school, and increasing the opportunities for physical activities in the school co-curricular schedule. Also, education, combined with environmental interventions such as physical education is the have a positive and relevant effect on the health of children.

Findings

Adequate physical activity and diet positively impacted on the weight of the participants, thus help reduce overweight and other indicators of obesity in primary and secondary children. These interventions are, therefore, useful for reducing obesity in children. School-base interventions are useful because they help capture a large population and are useful in the fight against obesity.

Paper Critique

To extensively critique the effectiveness of school-based health promotion in improving healthy eating and physical activity and preventing childhood obesity, this critique explores the gaps and weaknesses in approach. Also, the analysis provides appropriate suggestions on how to carry out future interventions. The ramifications of the just-completed school-based food and nutrition interventions have shown the need to step up these programs. For instance, the evidence form these systematic reviews of behavioural factors indicates that responses have been using short-term policies and failed to touch on some critical behavioural risk patterns such as; socioeconomic factors, family environment and psychological factors. In addition, the aim for most of any obesity control prevention and intervention trial is to help a person develop an appropriate body composition, basically weight. Such ends to interventions have blocked the pathway to realizing more significant results of the prevention and intervention.

When conduction childhood interventions in future, the outcome of the exercise should be long-term and seek to improve the finding and outcome measures such as body weight, composition and other obesity indicators such as skinfold.

Most learning institutions are not willing to bridge the gap between nutrition, exercise and healthy lifestyle through education. Enlightening teenagers about the psychological challenges obese people are likely to face is one-way education can be used to create awareness and bridge this gap. Overweight individuals are stereotyped as unhealthy, academically unsuccessful, socially inept, and unhygienic. There are negative stereotypes associated with obesity, where individuals are viewed as lazy and consuming a lot of food.

When conducting future interventions on obesity, stakeholders should aim to bridge between the less fortunate and the privileged in society. There are substantial psychological consequences of obesity to obese people. Overweight adolescents can develop a negative self-image, which leads to declining degrees of self-esteem. People with obesity, especially teenagers, tend to feel sad, lonely, and nervousness which leads to depression.  For instance, most interventions are done in developed nations, yet obesity is a universal concern. Besides, to eradicate a culture of imbalance and inequality among age groups, interventions should target toddlers, not just primary and secondary school children. Also, prevention and intervention measure should extend the target beyond physical activity and nutrition to general lifestyle and family culture. Finally, if prevention and intervention actions aim to tame the obesity pandemic at an early age, exploring all obesity indicators in children and having a long-term plan should be the goal.