Blog Site Reflection Paper

Introduction:

      As I skimmed through the syllabus for Tech Apps, I was appalled when I read that I would be required to create a blog site. Immediate nervousness had set in, because I had no idea of where to start. Once class actually started and I realized I wasn’t alone in my fear for this Blog Site Assignment, I began to feel a lot better. By the second week of class, my fear was evicted and excitement had taken its place. I had three topics that I wanted to choose, so I combined two of the three. My final topic was obesity as it relates to socioeconomic status.

Health Topic/Target Population

I chose obesity and socioeconomic status because I was curious to see how much of a correlation the two had. I assumed that lower socioeconomic status would result in a lower obesity rate. Then I thought that lower socioeconomic statuses consume foods high in fat due to the lower price in comparison to healthier options. I figured that creating a blog site and doing research, a lot of these questions would be answered.

      I believed that anyone could relate to this topic however, the targeted population was young adults. The reason I targeted young adults is because young adults typically change socioeconomic status and weight. Typically there is a significant weight gain after college. In addition there is an increase income. I assumed young adults could relate to both.

Marketing

In the beginning of this project, I never thought of a marketing strategy for my blog. As stated before, I was unsure of where to start let alone how to advertise. It wasn’t until I received directive that I began advertising my blog site. I initially added it to my Linked In profile, followed by my Facebook profile, and ending with my Instagram profile. In a matter of minutes my blog site was featured on all of my social networks. I then made my profile public, so that anyone could view it. Whenever I would add anything new I would send a group text informing my colleagues of the change. It didn’t take long for my views to increase on my blog and this made me happy.

Health Education Tool

Anything that promotes health and provides information related to health and wellbeing can be used as a Health Education tool. I believe that the same is true for my blog. My blog site offers information related to obesity from the causes to prevention methods. In addition, I have provided additional resources that readers can benefit from. I am so excited for the work that I have put in and I know that readers will benefit from it.

C.R.A.P. Principle Blog Design

I don’t like to think of myself as a creative person; however I do not consider myself boring either. The blog design that I chose was one that was simple and easy to read. It provided readers with color, but the color was not over powering. I tried my best to focus on the C.R.A.P Principle. The orange color scheme that I used allowed things to stand out and I used that for my contrast. I used black ink and neither one was over powering. I tried my best to use the same outline for every blog post. In doing so, I made it my duty to use the same format that included a title, body, and reference if needed. I used the same color and font throughout the entire blog. My main reason for doing that was to focus on the repetition aspect of the blog. The most complicated part of it all was trying to keep the alignment straight. I struggled with this whenever I inserted pictures due to the different picture sizes. Eventually I was able to get everything aligned. Last and certainly not least, I focused on proximity. I did this by making all of blogs relate to each other and listing them consecutively. There should be no issues finding the things that you need to maneuver through my blog site.

Conclusion

All in all, this was a great experience and I’m glad I had the opportunity to learn. Working on this project was so much fun and I learned a lot. I will truly cherish these skills that I have gained and use to blog site for referencing when needed. In addition, I plan to continue using my Linked In page for networking. I will also add a link to blog site on my resume.

Possible Reasons for Childhood Obesity

The following is a list of possible reasons that children may be experiencing obesity. This list of reasons was obtained from the Centers of Disease Control as a guide to inform the public for the purpose of this blog. If you would like more information, please visit https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood/causes.html

Childhood obesity is a complex health issue. It occurs when a child is well above the normal or healthy weight for his or her age and height. The main causes of excess weight in youth are similar to those in adults, including individual causes such as behavior and genetics. Behaviors can include dietary patterns, physical activity, inactivity, medication use, and other exposures. Additional contributing factors in our society include the food and physical activity environment, education and skills, and food marketing and promotion.

·               Advertising of less healthy foods.
Nearly half of U.S. middle and high schools allow advertising of less healthy foods, which impacts students' ability to make healthy food choices. In addition, foods high in total calories, sugars, salt, and fat, and low in nutrients are highly advertised and marketed through media targeted to children and adolescents, while advertising for healthier foods is almost nonexistent in comparison.

·         Variation in licensure regulations among child care centers.
More than 12 million children regularly spend time in child care arrangements outside the home. However, not all states use licensing regulations to ensure that child care facilities encourage more healthful eating and physical activity.

·         No safe and appealing place, in many communities, to play or be active.
Many communities are built in ways that make it difficult or unsafe to be physically active. For some families, getting to parks and recreation centers may be difficult, and public transportation may not be available. For many children, safe routes for walking or biking to school or play may not exist. Half of the children in the United States do not have a park, community center, and sidewalk in their neighborhood. Only 27 states have policies directing community-scale design.

·         Limited access to healthy affordable foods.
Some people have less access to stores and supermarkets that sell healthy, affordable food such as fruits and vegetables, especially in rural, minority, and lower-income neighborhoods. Supermarket access is associated with a reduced risk for obesity. Choosing healthy foods is difficult for parents who live in areas with an overabundance of food retailers that tend to sell less healthy food, such as convenience stores and fast food restaurants.

·         Greater availability of high-energy-dense foods and sugar sweetened beverages.
High-energy-dense foods are ones that have a lot of calories in each bite. A recent study among children showed that a high-energy-dense diet is associated with a higher risk for excess body fat during childhood. Sugar sweetened beverages are the largest source of added sugar and an important contributor of calories in the diets of children in the United States. High consumption of sugar sweetened beverages, which have few, if any, nutrients, has been associated with obesity. On a typical day, 80% of youth drink sugar sweetened beverages.

·         Increasing portion sizes.
Portion sizes of less healthy foods and beverages have increased over time in restaurants, grocery stores, and vending machines. Research shows that children eat more without realizing it if they are served larger portions.This can mean they are consuming a lot of extra calories, especially when eating high-calorie foods.

·         Lack of breastfeeding support.
Breastfeeding protects against childhood overweight and obesity. However, in the United States, while 75% of mothers start out breastfeeding, only 13% of babies are exclusively breastfed at the end of 6 months. The success rate among mothers who want to breastfeed can be improved through active support from their families, friends, communities, clinicians, health care leaders, employers, and policymakers.

Reference 

Centers for Disease Control (2016). Retrieved on July 20, 2016 from https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood/causes.html 

  

Socioeconomic and Obesity Infographic

Please click on the following link to view my infographic.

http://www.easel.ly/create/?id=https://s3.amazonaws.com/easel.ly/all_easels/1880561/Socioeconomic&key=prihttp://www.easel.ly/create/?id=https://s3.amazonaws.com/easel.ly/all_easels/1880561/Socioeconomic&key=pri

Obesity Statistics in the United States

Obesity Statistics in the United States

Did you know?

 “Arkansas now has the highest adult obesity rate in the nation, according to The State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America. Arkansas's adult obesity rate is currently 35.9 percent, up from 21.9 percent in 2000 and from 17.0 percent in 1995. U.S. adult obesity rates remained mostly steady — but high — this past year, increasing in Kansas, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Utah and remaining stable in the rest. Rates of obesity now exceed 35 percent in three states (Arkansas, West Virginia and Mississippi), 22 states have rates above 30 percent, 45 states are above 25 percent, and every state is above 20 percent. Arkansas has the highest adult obesity rate at 35.9 percent, while Colorado has the lowest at 21.3 percent.”

What can be done?

“According to the 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), 13.9 percent of high school students were obese, and an additional 16.0 percent were overweight.¹ The information from YRBSS is based on a survey of participating states and uses self-reported information. State obesity rates among high school students ranged from a low of 10.3 percent in Montana to a high of 18.9 percent in Mississippi, with a median of 13.3 percent. CDC's Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity focuses on the obesity epidemic, improving nutrition and increasing physical activity. DNPAO tracks and analyzes obesity, nutrition and physical activity trends at national, state and local levels, and studies and promotes best practices for effective strategies and programs.”

“In FY 2013 and FY 2014, DNPAO was able to provide funding to all 50 states, including $16.7 million for obesity prevention. Currently, CDC does not have sufficient or sustained funds to maintain obesity prevention activities or to build upon or scale effective programs. In addition, DNPAO works on a series of obesity prevention priority initiatives, including breastfeeding, early child care education, and a "high-risk" program that provides $5 million in competitive grants to communities where obesity rates are above 40 percent. As priority initiatives have been created, DNPAO's total budget has only grown slightly from $47.5 million in FY 2013 to $49.5 million in FY 2014. This has functionally resulted in a cut of 21 percent in funding to support its core activities.”

Reference:

Retrieved from State of Obesity. http://stateofobesity.org/policy/communities-and-healthy-weight/centers-for-disease-control-and-prevention-winnable-battle  

My personal experience with Fitness Apps

Fitness Apps The 4th of July holiday has passed and the guilt from indulging in those high calorie foods has officially sunken in. I am currently disgusted with myself, but knowing that it could be worse, I digress. For an entire week (June 28- July 5) I have been monitoring my weight and physical activity through mobile apps called “My Fitness Pal” and “My Diet Coach.” These apps were chosen because they seemed to focus on my needs as a consumer and seemed to be more accurate than most. “My Fitness Pal” is an interactive calorie counter that calculates your calories each day. Based on my weight and current weight loss goal, I was allowed a daily calorie count of 1,710. If I exercised on a particular day, technically that number went up because I would have burned calories. This app has been featured in NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today just to name a few.

 “My Fitness Pal” is free and is easy to use. One strength of this app is that it counts your exercise into you daily calorie amount therefore you are able to eat more if you exercise. One weakness is that it may not recognize food that cook. You would have to input each specific ingredient in order to get the total calories. I think that is the only improvement that this app needs. I do believe that It could be used for long-term health behavior change. It has definitely helped me.

 “My Diet Coach” is a visual weight tracker that will motivate, track, and help resist food cravings and more. Over the course of the week, I noticed that this app really offered a lot of great features. One of the most interesting features is the “Food craving panic button.” This is a button you press when you feel the urge to break your current “diet.” It provides suggestions and other alternatives to eating unhealthy foods. A weakness of this app is that it gives you a visual avatar that is supposedly a representation of what you look like. Unfortunately for those who aren’t as self-confident, this could tear them down. I would suggest removing the avatar and just using numbers. People are motivated by loss in weight no matter the delivery. I definitely think this app can be used for a more quick behavior change rather than long term. I don’t think this app will benefit anyone who just wants to maintain their weight.

 I really enjoyed using these apps for a week and I will continue to use “My Fitness Pal”. This assignment really put things into perspective for me and I am grateful for that. I would recommend these apps to anyone wanting to lose weight.

Obesity & Socioeconomic Power Point

Obesity Facts

Obesity is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health (2016) .BMI (body mass index) provides a convenient population-level measure of obesity.

Obesity is an issue throughout all ages but is becoming more serious in the childhood population. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that approximately 17% (or 12.7 million) of children and adolescents aged 2—19 years are obese (2012). The following information is an excerpt from a fact checklist from the CDC:

Obesity prevalence on the basis of family income among children from low-income households was:

• 14.2% among children in families with an income-to-poverty ratio of less than or equal to 50%.
• 14.5% among children in families with an income-to-poverty ratio of 51–100%.
• 13.4% among children in families with an income-to-poverty ratio of 101–130%.
• 12.4% among children in families with an income-to-poverty ratio of 131–150%.
• 11.8% among children in families with an income-to-poverty ratio of 151-185%.

 Income-to-poverty ratios reflect family income in relation to poverty threshold. The poverty level varies by family size, the number of related children, and the age of the head of household, but not by state. For example, a family of four with two children and an annual income of $22,811 were at the poverty level in 2011. For income-to-poverty ratios less than 100%, the family income is lower than the poverty threshold. When the ratio equals 100%, the income and poverty level are the same, and when the ratio is greater than 100%, the income is higher than the poverty level. A ratio of 130% indicates that family income was 30% above the poverty level.

This is an ongoing issue in the United States. Poverty and Obesity are so closely related you would think they were sisters. It is important to educate the children on the risks and challenges that they face from dealing with obesity. The more they know, the more they will understand.

References

Centers for Disease Control (2012).   Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html 

World Health Organization (2016). Retrieved from http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/obesity/facts/en/

Reasons Why Poverty Leads to Obesity

         Obesity is a disease that many struggle with on a day to day basis and have struggled with their entire life. Obesity added to their already stressful lifestyle, it’s no wonder why people are living the way that do. Contrary to popular belief, obesity is hardly ever caused by greed. In fact, some people over eat out of fear about not knowing where their next meal is coming from. Then there are some that eat to forget about other things. Food addiction can be just a serious as drug addiction. According to Hedwig Lee, from the University of Washington, the United States is facing an “obesity epidemic.” The obesity growth is at a steady rate. Hedwig says “Obesity is especially rampant among Americans with the lowest levels of education and the highest poverty rates” (Hedwig, 2012).

                It is easy to say eat right and engage in is regular physical activity if you have the means in which to do so. For children, it is even more difficult because they are heavily influenced by their families and the community. Impoverished living conditions are a great deal for the young because they allow many barriers to engaging in healthy behavior (Hedwig, 2012). Families with lower incomes have to limit the choices due to a limited budget. In some cases, the availability of assistance runs out before the month is over leading to unhealthy behaviors. According to Hedwig, these are some of the reasons why the risk of obesity is grater for lower income families:

•  Families choose high-fat foods dense with energy – foods such as sugars, cereals, potatoes and processed meat products – because these foods are more affordable and last longer than fresh vegetables and fruits and lean meats and fish. 
• Poor families often live in disadvantaged neighborhoods where healthy foods are hard to find. Instead of large supermarkets, poor neighborhoods have a disproportionate number of fast food chains and small food stores providing cheap, high-fat foods.
• Economic insecurity – such as trouble paying bills or rent – leads to stress, and people often cope by eating high-fat, sugary foods. 

·         Families cannot usually afford to pay for organized children’s activities outside of school – and schools in impoverished areas are less likely to run sports or physical activity programs than schools with more resources.

·         Due to inflexible work schedules, lack of transportation, or unmet needs for child care, poor parents, especially single mothers, may find it hard to support extra activities for their children. Leaving kids in front of the TV is often all stressed poor parents can manage.

·         In many poor neighborhoods, parks, playgrounds, trails, and free public gyms are often not available or safe. Neighborhoods may be crime-ridden, and there may be no nearby indoor places for play or exercise. Ironically, parental efforts to keep kids safe and indoors may increase encourage sedentary behaviors such as watching TV and playing video games.

The sad part of it all is that so many children are affected by this and it is beyond their control. It is time for the community to stand up and take charge. The “obesity epidemic” should be looked at as a community issue rather than an individual issue. In New York, there is program in place that uses mobile food carts to offer fresh produce in certain poor neighborhoods. In addition, schools play a major role. By incorporating mandatory physical activity and strict nutrition guidelines, they are taking charge on the issue at hand. In order for this issue to be put behind us, we must join together as a community.

Reference

Lee, Hedwig (2012). Why poverty leads to obesity and lifelong problems. Retrieved from http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/brief/why-poverty-leads-obesity-and-life-long-problems

Poverty and Obesity

Poverty and obesity are both mention whenever the subject of one comes about. This is because they are closely. Some studies have proven that obesity is the result of poverty.  This same idea has trickled down to children in schools. According to Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), competitive foods are widely available in U.S. public schools (2010). Competitive foods are defined as those foods and beverages available or sold outside of the federally-reimbursed school meals programs (FRAC, 2010). This means that the food served in U.S. public school have an impact on the health status of the students that attend these schools. Competitive foods are known to be energy-dense and nutrient poor. The only result from energy- dense and nutrient poor foods is fat. An increase of fat will lead to obesity.

         The distribution of competitive foods has a larger impact on low-income families. “If students from families with limited budgets eat less healthy competitive foods instead of a free or reduced-price school meal that meets nutrition standards, they lose out nutritionally in a much bigger way than their more affluent peers who make the same kind of choices” (FRAC, 2010, pp. 4). The pressure from peers may contribute to the obesity factor as well. Students are well aware of those who eat school lunches and those that do not. The Food Research and Action Center have found Children from low-income families must choose between spending money they can afford and singling themselves out by forgoing competitive foods (2010).

The FRAC is doing a great job of researching low income families and the issues that they face with food. Obesity and poverty are being looked at more and more closely as research has proven they have a strong correlation. It is also interesting that other research contradicts what the FRAC is saying. This is going to be an ongoing issue until a solution has been created.

References

Food Research and Action Center(2010). Competitive Foods. Retrieved from http://frac.org/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/cnr05_competitivefoods.pdf

The Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status and Obesity

The Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status and Obesity

            Obesity is health issue that is commonly discussed throughout the United State. There are numerous studies that have been conducted to explain it. There are so many factors that influence obesity, that make it difficult to find the root to the problem. Of those factors, socioeconomic status(SES) is high on the obesity totem pole.

            The American Psychological Association defines socioeconomic status as “commonly conceptualized [ideas that] the social standing or class of an individual or group. It is often measured as a combination of education, income and occupation” (American Psychological Association, 2016). Obesity is defined as “weight that is higher than what is considered as a healthy weight for a given height is described as overweight or obese. Body Mass Index, or BMI, is used as a screening tool for overweight or obesity” (Houle, 2013). Obesity levels have been on the rise for all socioeconomic groups, but it seems to affect some groups more than others. Researchers found that obesity rose with a nation’s economic development, but also that socioeconomic status as it related to obesity changed. In lower-income countries, people with higher SES were more likely to be obese. Conversely, in high-income countries, those with higher SES were less likely to be obese ( Houle, 2013).

The following chart shows that among men, obesity prevalence is generally similar at all income levels, with a tendency to be slightly higher at higher income levels. The Chart also shows that the prevalence of obesity increases as income decreases for women. The link between socio economic status and obesity tends to be more prevalent with women. Education level also plays a role in obesity. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there is no significant trend between educational level and obesity prevalence. However, obesity prevalence increases as education decreases (CDC, 2008).

 

The National Survey of Children’s Health foundation found Children living in low-income neighborhoods are 20 percent to 60 percent more likely to be obese or overweight than children living in high socioeconomic status neighborhoods and healthier built environments (Socioeconomic and Obesity, n.d). Girls living in neighbor-hoods having lower socioeconomic characteristics are more likely to be obese than girls in neighborhoods with higher sociologic characteristics. The following graph shows different rates based on education level for girls:

 

            As the years pass obesity still remains on the high end of health issues. It’s difficult to concentrate on one factor when there are other factors that come into play. What is one to do when they don’t have the resources to eat a balanced and nutritional meal? How do you explain that because you can afford less national meals that it is not the best for you? Obesity amongst Americans will always be an issue. It is up to us to move it down on the totem pole.

 

References

American Pscychological Association (2016). Socioeconomic Status. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/topics/socioeconomic-status/ 

Centers for Disease Control (2008). Obesity and Socioeconomic Status in Children and Adolescents. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db51.htm

Houle, Brian (2013). Population Reference Bureau. How Obesity Relates to Socioeconomic Status. Retrieved from http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2013/obesity-socioeconomic-status.aspx

Socioeconomics and Obesity. (n.d.). Retrieved June 09, 2016, from http://stateofobesity.org/socioeconomics-obesity/