Obesity has always been a problem in Orange County, California. Several people's health has suffered as a result of the disorder. It reduces worker productivity by interfering with the human body's regular metabolism rate. It contributes significantly to the rise in social and medical costs. California has a substantially lower obesity rate than other states. Obesity and its consequences continue to impact the state's physical and economic health (Castro, Samuels, & Harman, 2013). The research will concentrate on devising mechanisms that would aid in addressing obesity issues in children. The study will focus on a population size of 100 respondents. This study will be conducted in Orange County in Anaheim which has a population of 351043 individuals. The area is about 101 square miles. Obese is a disease which brings along different chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes and therefore preventing its prevalence among the people living in Orange County will help in promoting the life expectancy of many in the county. The disorder affects the people aged 20 years and above and children in grade 5 (Haghighat et al., 2016). The social and environmental setting of these individuals plays a major role in propelling the prevalence of this disease because they determine the physical fitness of people. At the end of the research, it will be able to provide ways of preventing obesity in Orange County Ca.
Discussion of Health Concern
The obesity is prevalent among adults and children in the Orange County. 68.4% of Latino adults in Orange County are obese, that is, 2 out of 3 and greater than the rate for White adults (55.2%). On the other hand, 32.8% of Asian adults in Orange County are obese. According to these statistics, obese was described to include the individuals who had a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 25 or greater. The obesity rate in Orange County is lower than other areas. However, the difference in health differs based on demographic and geographic populations in the county. According to the report released between 2005 and 2014, 1 of every six fifth-grade students in Orange County was obese with highest rates been in Anaheim, Buena Park, La Habra and Santa Ana (Hoss, 2017). The Orange County population has grown by 0.43 over the last thirty years and has upheld diversity regarding race and ethnicity. It is made up of 41% white individuals, 35% Hispanic or Latino, 19% are Asians, and 2% are African or Black American. The average population of Orange County by 2015 was 3.15 million and 23.5% of adults aged 20 and above were obese. The total population of a reported area of Orange County CA, 887665 were adults above the age of 20 and 209489 were found obese. This rate is lower compared to higher rates of Florida, and United States which are 25.39% and 27.1% respectively. It is imperative to note that most males are obese than females (Hoss, 2017). The Orange County is 799 square miles, and its population density is 3860 persons per square mile, and 8% of California population lives in Orange County. A third of Orange County children are overweight.
Causes of Obesity
The above disease is caused by different factors that relate to social and economic activities. Understanding these causes will help the affected work toward reducing weight to acceptable limits. The weight loss answers are different to distinct users (Wilding, 2001). The causes of obesity can be either direct or indirect. Choices and behaviors of individuals can lead to one being obese. The most notable behavior is the eating habits which relates to choices of food. Sugary foods and heavily starched such as soda, fries, and hamburgers taste sweet and are liked by many people, and they have low nutritional value compared to lower calorie options such as vegetables. Lack of physical activity plays a pivotal role in obesity. Many individuals tend sitting all the day long. Such inactivity lenders them physically useless. Driving to places adjacent to their homes instead of walking or cycling. For the children, spending the whole day glued to a screen and playing computer games play a role too. The latter reduces the physical activity. The surrounding play a role in determining the routine and the lifestyle of most individuals. It determines the availability of sugary foods (Wilding, 2001). People have also adopted a more sedentary ways of life with limited physical activities which increase chances of being obese. Technology has replaced calorie-burning activities such as rope skipping and biking which makes someone physically fit. Other individuals are obese not because of their choices but due to genetic predisposition to obesity. Kleinfelters' Syndrome causes the predisposed people to be obese. Finally, some metabolic disorders and diseases of the immune system may also lead to obesity. The disorders include; insulin impairment and Cushing syndrome.
Prevention Resources
The county has undertaken several strategies that are propelled to ensure that obesity is mitigated on the affected people. The county decided to coordinate consistent reports about obesity with health care providers, making available resident leadership academy training, carrying on training on communication and collective impact and providing capacity support to coalitions throughout Orange County (Li et al., 2008). Providing access to healthier foods and nutrition information, support of physical activity, providing access to healthier foods and beverages in schools and decreasing the television viewing time among both adults and children. The weaning mothers should increase breastfeeding duration and exclusivity. Reducing the consumption of high energy dense foods and focus more on foods with high nutritional values.
Evidence-Based Practice
It is challenging for parents to convince their children to eat the healthy foods they have prepared, it is always an enticing moment. It determines the risk of children being obese. The childhood obesity in Orange County is at 52% according to a study by UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. Tabling healthy food options on the table and allowing the child to choose their preference is the campaign which is ongoing in the Orange County Ca. The program targets the children from the prenatal stage through age 5 (Trieu, 2008). Education has been perceived to be the noblest way to eradicating the childhood obesity. Through the program, children have learned to be fit; teachers have also inculcated the practices in their school timetable as a lesson to make sure children grow physically fit.
Community Health Nursing Social Media Campaign Strategy
The social campaign objective will be based on educating people the different ways of preventing obesity and cutting weight. The campaign will involve clips that exhibit diverse ways of reducing weight. It will involve videos that show short but vigorous exercises that will ensure that the all the parts of human body are involved. This will help in burning calories. Some of the exercises will involve rope skipping, biking, running and playing football for the adults. Jumping and other simple exercises will target small children. Additionally, the campaign will advocate for more vegetables which have low calories and high nutritional values. The campaign will target parents of the affected children and the affected adult's individuals who can absorb the information from the advert by themselves. This provides the target population with a pool of information on how to cut weight and achieve a healthy living. The campaign will be important because it will focus on ensuring a pool of people cuts weights at a considerable measure within a short period (Haghighat et al., 2016). The campaign will be run via Facebook, Television adverts and through national websites. This will make sure that it reaches to a bigger target population. Facebook will be important because it will reach to a wide group of adults worldwide who possess Facebook accounts. The Television adverts will have the same impact. However, this will be more inclusive because it includes even the children. The national websites will be important on educating the aged and technology hyper individuals. All these platforms will have one major objective of educating individuals on the various mechanism of preventing obesity in young and aged individuals in the society.
Target Population
The target population will benefit from this campaign by having access to information that is imperative on learning how to reduce the risk of being obese. Additionally, it will educate them on different ways of cutting weight and being physically fit.
Best practices for implementing social media tools for health marketing.
There are three best practices in which social media, engaging with patients in real time. This will ensure that there is a deep conversation between the patients and the practitioners. That is, their questions will be addressed, concerns and interest on a real-time basis (Haghighat et al., 2013). Facilitating physician collaboration is another practice that can be used in implementing this campaign. The networking imitative will increase interaction with patients thus ensuring that a shorter learning period and greater acceptance of making use of social media tools. Additionally, supporting population and preventative health initiatives which will ensure that there exists a coherent and seamless communication between individuals and health organizations. The strategy supports a large population and facilitates health initiatives. It is one of the best ways of ensuring a communication subsists between the patients and practitioners.
Social Media Campaign Implementation Plan
The plan will be laid as stipulated below: the major stakeholder will include patients and the practitioners. The practitioners have a duty of ensuring that: the patient's concerns and interest are attended to promptly, the questions are answered immediately, providing the best advice for the patients regarding their diet, mobilizing the people to cut weight and keep fit and educating patients on basic exercises (Hoss, 2017). On the other hand, patients have a duty of listening to patient’s advice, subscribing to these campaigns and adhering to doctor’s prescriptions.
The clinics, education institutions can strike partnerships with National Government and private stakeholders to provide them with resources that will help them run the campaign. This will ensure that implementers of the campaign are remunerated and have the drive to keep on advocating for physical fitness.
The timeline for social media campaign will be intended to take a maximum period of six months upon which every household is expected to be conversant with different strategies of fighting obesity. After the 6th month, the less vigorous campaign will continue indefinitely to ensure that people remain on toes with their physicality issues.
The evaluation of the effectiveness of the campaign will be based on re-examining a sample of 100 individuals. Out of 100 one will examine how many are obese and compare that percentage with the existing statistics (Hoss, 2017). The percentile will help in determining how effective the campaign was and whether it has achieved its objective of preventing and reducing the number of obese people in the Orange County Ca.
The cost of implementing this campaign was contingent on several factors that ensure the process will be smooth. Costs will be tied to various tenets that include launching the blog, coaching the users of the site, restructuring it in the Facebook fan page are the major issues that determine the cost of creating a social media strategy. In total, the amount will be $2500 for 9 months.
Reflections
While reflecting on social media marketing, it is critical to both nursing practitioners and the general public in whole because it eases the work of nurses in delivering their services to the patients in the most simple and friendly way. Additionally, it brings most of the patients on board without fear of the body weight. The social media campaign has the power to reduce obesity cost in future especially when the patients take it as their initiative to be physically fit. Thus the duties of a nurse in the near future will be substantially reduced because the interaction with patients will be simplified.
References
Castro, D. C., Samuels, M., & Harman, A. E. (2013). Growing healthy kids: a community garden–based obesity prevention program. American journal of preventive medicine, 44(3), S193-S199.
Haghighat, N., Hu, M., Laurent, O., Chung, J., Nguyen, P., & Wu, J. (2016). Comparison of birth certificates and hospital-based birth data on pregnancy complications in Los Angeles and Orange County, California. BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 16(1), 93.
Hoss, S. (2017). Connect OC Blog - Grim statistics for childhood obesity in O.C.. [online] Connectoc.org. Available at: http://connectoc.org/Talk/ConnectOCBlog/tabid/116/PostID/39/Grim-statistics-for-childhood-obesity-in-OC.aspx [Accessed 29 Sep. 2017].
Li, G., Zhang, P., Wang, J., Gregg, E. W., Yang, W., Gong, Q., ... & Shuai, Y. (2008). The long-term effect of lifestyle interventions to prevent diabetes in the China Da Qing Diabetes Prevention Study: a 20-year follow-up study. The Lancet, 371(9626), 1783-1789.
PH Wilding, J. (2001). Causes of obesity. Practical Diabetes, 18(8), 288-292.
Trieu, S. L. (2008). Partner communication and factors associated with the decision to obtain an HIV test among Chinese/Chinese American community college students in Northern California. Loma Linda University.
