The current paper presents a teaching plan for teaching community members in Santiago, US about childhood obesity. Precisely, the plan presents information about the prevalence of childhood obesity in Santiago, its causes, its detrimental immediate and long-term effects and how to avoid it. In addition, the paper presents an epidemiological rationale for topic, evaluation of the teaching experience and community response to the teaching, and examines areas for strength and improvement.

Summary of the Teaching Plan

Obesity simply refers to having excess body fat. Obesity is caused by ‘calories imbalance’ in the body. In particular, it occurs in cases where the amounts of calories consumed are much more than the amounts of calories expended (World Health Organization, 2012). Intervention to prevent childhood obesity has various benefits to individuals and the wider communities, including;

• Reducing the risk of getting some health-related diseases
• Improving the feeling and sense of wellbeing
• Reducing mortality rates
• Reducing the amount of funds spent in the process of treating diseases occurring as a result of obesity
• Improving productivity of individuals and the overall community
• Increasing likelihood of a healthy future society (World Health Organization, 2012).

Proposed Intervention Approach

Children should be given healthy foods. In other words, they should be given balanced diets. In addition, the children should engage in physical activities, such us running, jogging or playing for at least 60 minutes daily. Obese children and parents should be provided with education about the healthy foods that should be included in children’s diet (World Health Organization, 2012).

Planning before Teaching

Teaching was conducted by five nurses, namely, Carol Marten, Ancy Jacob, Stefanie Green, Angela Faucheaux and Jennifer Benyamin. The nurses have varying experiences and different nursing backgrounds. All of them have adequate knowledge that was needed to educate the community about different aspects of obesity. The teaching took place in community five halls around the city. The community halls are community-owned buildings that allow activities such as health promotion teaching to be carried out, free of charge. The teaching process took place once in a week, for five weeks. The nurses conducted the teaching together for approximately two hours per session. The two hours included extra time for the parents and children to ask questions. Before engaging in the teaching process, we prepared information to be passed to the parents and children, summarized it, and allocated it in PowerPoint. We carried a screen onto which the information in the PowerPoint was projected. We also purchased different types of foods, from both healthy and unhealthy categories that were used in demonstrations. As well, we carried bags of bottled water and fresh fruits that were given to the participants. We gave the teaching services to the community members free of charge. We also prepared evaluation sheets to be filled by the participants. We incurred an average of $100 in buying foods, water, fruits for each session and other small expenses.

Epidemiological rationale for topic

Childhood obesity in the US has increased more than two times over the last three decades. In adolescents, the rate has increased more than four times over the same period. A report released by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in 2012 indicated that approximately 12.5 million (or 18 percent) of children and adolescents in the US aged between two and nineteen years were obese in 2012 (Tseng, 2013). In Santiago, statistics indicates that the obesity in children aged between six and eleven years increased from seven percent in 1980 to approximately seventeen percent in 2012. In children aged between twelve and nineteen years, the rate of obesity rose from five percent in 1980 to approximately twenty-one percent in 2012 (Tseng, 2013). The data indicated that more than one-third of children aged between two and nineteen years in Santiago were either obese or overweight. The rates of increase in obesity and overweight have varied based on age, sex, socio-economic status, ethnicity, race, geographic region and education level.

The fundamental roots of obesity conditions may be environmental, behavioral or genetic factors (Gibbs, 2008). Eating unhealthy diets has been a major cause for the childhood obesity in Santiago.

Childhood obesity has both short-term, as well as long-term health effects. The immediate effects of obesity in children include poor self-esteem, sleep apnea, stigmatization and high risk of joint and bone problems, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The long-term effect of obesity is that it increases the risk of becoming obese during adulthood. In particular, increases the risk of getting health problems during adulthood such as osteoarthritis, stroke, several types of cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease (Gibbs, 2008). Over the last ten years, the federal government in the US has incurred an average cost of around $100 billion in treating diseases resulting from obesity and overweight. In fact, obesity has been responsible for an average of around 300,000 deaths in the US each year. Childhood obesity, therefore, has dire effects both in the short- and long-term.

Although there have been socio-demographic variations in the rate of increase in childhood obesity in Santiago, the rate increased drastically among all groups between 1980 and 2004. From 2004 onwards, the average rate of increase has stagnated due to healthcare interventions. In fact, the rate has been decreasing in children aged between 2 and 5 years (Tseng, 2013). Despite the decrease, there is a need to continue sensitizing the community members on how to handle the problem in order to reduce cases of obesity among children in Santiago. With increased interventions, the rate of obesity in all socio-demographic groups in Santiago can reduce. Teaching the community members about the importance of being active activities and consuming healthy foods among children can help to prevent and to reduce the rates of obesity.

Evaluation of teaching experience

When preparing for the teaching sessions, we started by familiarizing ourselves to information about various aspects about obesity, and we collected recent statistics on obesity trends in Santiago. We also prepared notes, materials for practical activities and evaluation sheets to be filled by the participants. In every session, we started by introducing the main topic and gave a background to the issue. We tried to use simple language that would be easily understood by all participants, and in case of need, we interpreted the complex concepts. The practical demonstrations were the most important. We used different types of foods to demonstrate to the participants the unhealthy and healthy foods. We involved some of the participants in the demonstrations. After making some demonstrations, we inquired to know whether the participants had fully understood. We also encouraged them to ask questions. After the end of the formal part, the five nurses interacted with the community members directly to encourage them to ask confidential questions and to encourage further participation for those who did not have enough confidence to ask questions in the formal part of the sessions. Eventually, we gave the participants our contacts so that they can seek for additional help afterwards.

After completing the sessions, we took time to evaluate our teaching experiences, based on the fundamental teaching principals. For one to be an effective teacher to community members, he/she needs to encourage interaction and corroboration, to encourage creativity, to foster a conducive environment for learning, to incorporate practical activities in teaching, to inspire the participants, to present complex concepts and topics in a way that audience can easily understand, to have a clear understanding of the material and to be always ready to reply to the questions raised by the participants (Scales, 2008). We had rehearsed the basics of teaching carefully, and thus, we adhered to most of the key teaching concepts.

Community response

We distributed evaluation schedules to the participants, containing statements that were used to rate our teaching attributes and the experiences of the participants. Not all participants got them. The statements were rated against a 6 point scale (1= strongly, disagree 2 = disagree, 3= somehow agree, 4 = Somehow agree, 5 = Agree, 6 = strongly agree).

The following are the statements that were rated:

1)   The session was inspiring and impressive

2)   I understood every point

3)   The session helped me to realize areas of improvement

4)   Information was clear and audible

5)   The tutors responded well to our queries

6)   I gained new knowledge that I did not know

7)   I can now prevent or manage obesity better than before

The participant’s responses were rated as follows;

The figure above demonstrates that all scores were above average and thus, the community members were satisfied with the teaching.

As well, we encouraged the community members to give additional responses. Many of them explained that they were happy with the intervention and asked us to prepare other sessions in the future.

Areas of strengths and areas of improvement

We asked Mrs. Katie Kammer, an experienced health instructor, to evaluate out teaching plan and approaches. She went as far as to evaluate the information that was contained in our teaching materials, as well as the foods we used for demonstration. Mrs. Kammer explained that our teaching plan and approach was a good one and would eventually convey the desired information to the audience. She commented that we were able to incorporate most of the teaching standards in the process. She noted that the information contained in the materials was specific, simplified and easy to understand. However, she noted that we did not include information about how the community members should handle emergency situations. She also mentioned that, although we had included pictures of people who had managed to reduce weight after engaging in physical activities and healthy eating, we should have prepared some magazines to give to the community members. Those are the areas that we should consider improving next time.

References

Gibbs, L., O’Connor, T., Waters, E., Booth, M., Walsh, O., Green, J., Bartlett, J., & Swinburn, B.

(2008). Addressing the potential adverse effects of school-based BMI assessments on children’s wellbeing. International Journal ofPediatric Obesity, 3(l), 52-57

Tseng, M., Haapala, I., Hodge, A. & Yngve, A. (2013). Childhood Obesity. Public health

nutrition, 16(2), 191-198

World Health Organization (2012). Childhood Obesity Prevention. Retrieved from,

http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/80149/1/9789241504782_eng.pdf

Scales, P. (2008). Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector. Berkshire: Open

University Press