PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND OBESITY

Abstract

Introduction: Obesity is one of the leading complex health issues in the UK. The lack of physical activity acts as an important risk factor for the development of obesity among adult individuals in the UK. Thus, in this study, background regarding obesity and its link with physical activity in the UK is to be discussed to determine the extent of the problem.

Methods: The logic model of change and intervention mapping is used to develop a health promotion plan.

Expected results: The result expected from the health promotion is lower prevalence of obesity, avoidance of hospital admission due to risky health consequences caused by obesity and enhanced movement efficiency among obese adults to perform strenuous activity without difficulty due to weight issues.

Conclusion: The developed health promotion program will promote use of physical activity among adult obese individuals, in turn, helping to resolve and manage adult obesity prevalence in the UK.

Introduction

Obesity is one of the complex leading medical problem in the UK that leads individuals to develop excessive amount of fat which adds to their body weight due to their lifestyle and behavioural activities. It also creates risk of development of health issues such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and others (Chooi et al., 2019). The lack of physical activity acts as an important risk factor for development of obesity among individuals (McCoy and Morgan, 2020). Thus, in this study, background regarding obesity and its link with physical activity in the UK is to be discussed to determine the extent of the problem. The needs assessment with respect to obesity in the UK is to be explained. The logic model of change is to be used to determine the way physical activity can be involved in managing the health problem of obesity. Further, intervention mapping, implementation and evaluation plan of managing obesity in the UK by focusing on physical activity aspects is to be discussed. The way mentioned intervention are to be implicated in to overcome obesity issue in the UK is also to be explained.

Background of Obesity as a health problem

The individuals who have the BMI rate of 30 and more are mentioned to be suffering from obesity (Lou et al., 2017). In Europe, UK is mentioned to the fifth highest rate of obesity and in the world, UK is mentioned to have 36th highest rate of obesity as per reports published in 2016 (web.archive.org, 2016; Ballas et al., 2017). According to the reports of Statistics on Obesity, Physical Activity and Diet England (2020), 67% of adult men and 60% of adult women are obese or overweight and 26% of men and 29% of women are confirmed to be diagnosed with obesity. It equals to 28% of the adult population in the UK to be suffering from obesity (NHS, 2020). This indicates that the situation of obesity in the UK among adults has deteriorated as many of them are mentioned to be already suffering from obesity. The study by McCoy and Morgan (2020) mention that one of the key issues behind rising obesity rate is the lack of physical activity among adults. This is because without physical activity the body is express failure to use extra fat and avoiding its deposition to prevent extra body weight. In the UK, it is reported that 66% of the adult involve in physical activity and 22% are overall inactive with 12% being fairly active (NHS, 2019). This indicates that one-third of the adult population is not involved in physical activity. Thus, it can be seen that physical inactivity is a major issue as the number of obesity people is nearly similar to the number of adults who are not involved in physical activity in the UK as per current condition. Thus, to manage obesity in the UK, the key focus is to be intended on creating enhanced physical activity among all adults as it is one of the risk factors of the health problem so that the prevalence of obesity among the adults in the UK can be reduced

Needs Assessment

The needs assessment regarding any public health situation is made to develop overview regarding the epidemiological condition, possible health threat and existing health needs experienced by the health crisis-affected population (WHO, 2020). The epidemiological data regarding obesity informs that nearly 15.4% of the children below 16 years of age are suffering from obesity compared to 28% of adults in the UK (commonslibrary.parliament.uk, 2020). This indicates that adults are highly affected by the condition compared to the children and thus they are needed to be focussed first to help them overcome the health condition. The needs assessment for obesity mentions that it is needed to be focused toward lowering its prevalence because it has the efficiency to create hinder health condition and threatful long-term health complications among adults (Alghamdi et al., 2017). This is evident as obesity in the UK has resulted 876,000 hospital admission in 2019 which is 23% more since 2010 to be made due to varied health complications such as diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, high blood pressure and others created as an impact of the condition on the health of the patients (dentistry.co.uk, 2020). The further needs assessment regarding obesity among the adults mentioned that due to the health problem they are facing difficulty in movement and execute tenuous activity. This is because increased body weight is making people develop constrained mobility out of increased body mass, develop breathless in making strenuous activity and others (Alleva and Tylka, 2018). The study by Yuksel et al. (2020) mentions that physical activity is mentioned to contribute in ease of losing extra body fat by creating increased need for energy in the body. Thus, the prevalence of obesity in the UK adults is needed to be managed and resolved by focussing on creating enhanced physical activity so that the extra body weight is reduced as well as health threats related to the disease and ease in mobility among adults can be promoted.

Logic Model of Change

The Logic Model of Change provides a framework to determine the way the identified needs are to be fulfilled with respect to any health problem. The variables of the logic model of change include inputs, enablers, activities, immediate outcome and impact of change determined (Smith et al., 2020). The Health Belief Model has mentioned without retaliation of the benefits of any actions and motivation toward performing it, the individual would never make productive change as they doubt and are confused towards making the change in behaviour (Abdeyazdan et al., 2017). Thus, in the current condition regarding obesity among adults in the UK, the key input for change to be made is promotion of physical activity among the adults through evidence-based practise and funding and arrangement of related resources. This is because lack of physical activity is identified to be one of the risks that is leading to increase prevalence of adult obesity in the UK (Martin et al., 2018). The activities to be performed in making the change is distribution of leaflets to be adults regarding importance and basic ways of performing physical activity for managing obesity. The other activity will be inclusion of local authorities to make support as well as make arrangement of required fund and resources for making the change regarding obesity management through physical activity promotion. The enablers are referred to the factors or condition that are required to be present in allowing the execution of change (Tournier et al., 2020). In this respect, the enabler to be involved in the project are presence of social care workers, health professionals and physical trainer who would act to create informative condition for promotion of physical activity among adults with or without obesity. The other enabler to be present is funding assistance from the government to execute the actions for behaviour change among adults with obesity as well as without obesity. The immediate outcome determined to be received is increased awareness among adult in the UK regarding the need for physical activity in avoiding obesity and increased number of obese adults understand the way to perform physical activity to remain healthy. The final outcome determined to be received is lower prevalence of obesity, avoidance of hospital admission due to risky health consequences created by obesity and enhance movement efficiency among obese adults to perform strenuous activity due to loss of unhealthy weight.

Intervention

The intervention mapping is referred to as the protocol for development of evidence-based and theory-based health promotion programs (Fernandez et al., 2019). The six steps mentioned by intervention mapping model to be followed are identifying and understanding the problem, determining modifiable determinants, mechanism of change, clarifying the way change is to be delivered, testing and adaptation of intervention and collecting evidence for initial effectiveness of the change (Dalager et al., 2019). As per the mapping, the understanding by evaluating the prevalence of adult obesity in the UK that lack of physical activity is related with increased obesity among adults. This is evident as sedentary activity among adults has resulted them create reduced efficiency of the body to use fat in the form of energy gathered from food intake. It has led to increased fat deposition within the body and contributed toward their rise in body mass beyond control (Ortega et al., 2018). The modifiable variable determined for focussed intervention is promotion of enhanced physical activity among the obese adults through aerobic (walking, running, swimming, etc) and non-aerobic exercise (sprinting, weight lifting, etc) based on the health condition of the individuals. This is because aerobic and non-aerobic exercise helps obese individual to gradually develop physical activity needed for overcoming the extra fat deposition in the body by creating enhanced need for energy from them through exercise (Bennie et al., 2020). The mechanism of change to be followed in lowering prevalence of adult obesity in the UK is making availability of free physical exercise consultation for the adults, adequate availability of physical trainer and promoting weight management program to be established at workplace. This is because free exercise session and physical trainer would guide the obese adults in systematic manner about the amount of physical activity and each exercise is to eb performed to lose their weight and become healthy (Hassani et al., 2017). Moreover, the promotion of weight management session in the workplace would allow the employed adults to perform physical exercise and workouts while at the workplace to manage and resolve obesity (da Luz et al., 2017). The mentioned change will be established by offering the promotion of physical activity through online as well as offline mode. This indicates that use of social media and internet is to be used to reach the physical activity care from physical trainer to exercise details to the target obese adults as well as posters and leaflets are to be used to create offline awareness of the need of physical exercise for obesity management by adult. The testing and adaptation of health promotion program is required before its final implementation so that a well-developed plan without error is produced. In this aspect, the current determined intervention is planned to be initially implemented on 200 target obese adult from an area in the UK and feedback from them will be gathered to determine the alteration to the made in the existing program before its final implemented to ensure success. The feedback to be gathered for initial evaluation of the plan from the target population is through semi-structured intervention and close-ended survey questionnaire. Description of testing phase The testing phase is the step in which the determine health promotion plan are implemented on a target focus group of the target audience to understand the efficiency of impact of the program (Horton et al., 2018). In this health promotion, in the testing phase, 200 obese adults from two different localities one of which is to be most deprived and another to be least deprived area is to be randomly selected. A control group of 50 individuals who are obese adults from the two areas are also to be selected who are to be provided no physical activity intervention or others. The individual from least deprived area and most deprived areas are to be equally involved in performing physical activity intention through online and offline mode. The experiences of them regarding ease of use, function and appeal and personal experience of the offline and online implication of the program are to be gathered through feedback forms. The feedback gathered are to be evaluated to understand the further alteration in the health promotion plan to be made for its successful implication for the wider public in the UK.

Implementation strategy and Evaluation plan

The implementation strategy informs the actions to be performed for establishment of health promotion plan. In case of the health promotion program of physical activity for managing obesity among adult in the UK, the offline and online implementation strategy is the used. According to offline implementation strategy, the use of informative leaflets and posters specifying risk of obesity, benefit and need of physical activity along with way basic physical activity for obesity to be performed will be mentioned. In online strategy, the intention is to aware people through use of evidence about risk of obesity and benefit of physical activity along with mention them details about the opportunities and resources available in the locality which they can avail to develop behaviour change of including daily physical activity in managing and controlling obesity.

The evaluation plan informs that way any implemented program is to be monitored and assessed (Ward et al., 2018). The evaluation plan for the mentioned health promotion is initially going to include weight detection of the 300 individuals before and after implementation of the program. This is to determine the extent of weight reduction has been achieved by the targeted individual during the continuation of the program. The feedback from the participants through interview before and after the implication of the program is to be taken to assess their level of awareness regarding physical activity need for overcoming obesity. This is because interview helps to understand the detailed feelings and attitudes of the individual in regard to their advantage from the health promotion as well as develop detailed information about the changes in health promotion is to be made (Brandt et al., 2018). During the execution of the program, each of the individuals will be asked to inform their duration of physical activity each day through an online survey form. This is because it would help to identify the level of physical activity is been performed by each obese adult.

Discussion of the implication of the intervention

The UK government developed Better Health Campaign in 2020 with the target to lower prevalence of obesity and overweight among adults along with its related issues. The campaign to achieve its aim provided free services to reach healthy eating habit and attain active lifestyle (campaignresources.phe.gov.uk, 2020). The implementation of the present health promotion program will act in assisting better achievement of the goals of the Better Health Campaign. This is because the program will make the obese individuals inform way to achieve healthy physical activity at par with the Better Health Campaign to effectively reduce the prevalence of obesity among obese adult in the UK out of active lifestyle development. The NHS England weight loss plan informs the number of calories to be taken each day to manage obesity through healthy eating (NHS, 2019). The implementation of the current program will help the individuals who are targeted through the NHS plan way they can add physical activity along with healthy eating to more efficiently manage obesity in limited amount of time. The use of only healthy eating or physical activity act to partially help in reducing obesity but including them together would helps in better management obesity as food intake and physical activity in obesity management are interrelated. It is evident as executing exercise and eating junk food still leads to add unsaturated fats in the body whereas only healthy eating helps to avoid addition of extra fat in the body but does not create much effect on discarding the extra fat from the body required in resolving obesity (Beaulieu et al., 2020).

Conclusion

The developed health promotion program intends to promote use of physical activity among obese individuals in resolving and managing obesity. For this purpose, the logic model of change and intervention mapping is been performed which led to inform that use of fund is to be made along with resources are required to make the change. Moreover, the plan with be initially implemented on 300 obese adults and based on the result alteration is to be made for final implication of the plan in the public.

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