Developing a Health Care Policy: Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity is considered epidemic in the United States, and it is believed to be the cause of various chronic diseases. The increase in obesity among children is attributed to many things that need to be avoided for children to overcome this issue. The most significant thing is to formulate a policy that would ensure children are prevented from getting this menace of obesity. This paper will discuss some of the policy and laws that can be enacted to reduce the spread of obesity among children in the country.

If this sample essay on"Developing a Health Care Policy: Childhood Obesity" doesn’t help,
our writers will!

Trust an expert

My policy is that childhood obesity should be enacted through the creation of a new regulation that would ensure children are free from obesity. One of the regulations that the government should introduce is nutrition that are given to children. One of the major cause of obesity among childhood is nutrition that their parents are giving them. Some of their nutrients are not healthy for the body and can lead to serious diseases if not obesity. Such nutritious food is not considered poisonous to the body, and that is why several companies that manufacture them have argued that they are safe for the children (Kronenfeld, 2009). Some of these nutrients are cheap and can be afforded by people who have low living standards. The government should formulate a law that prevents such nutritious food from being manufactured in the country. This can be made possible through the enhancement of laws that regulate the food production in the country. The reason why such food causes obesity to children is because they contain some chemical that prevent the body from breaking them down into simple metabolic products that can be easily absorbed by the body. Such chemical is very harmful if taken for a very long time. The rules that should be formulated need to ensure that the government conducts extensive research on all the products that are manufactured in the country, especially those ones that are used for nutritious purposes (Kronenfeld, 2009). The research should be later taken to the board of experts to determine if such food is healthy for the general consumption or can lead to obesity. This would be one of the major steps to reduce obesity among children.

The reduced physical activities among children are another major cause of obesity in the country. The introduction of modern technology such as computer games and video games have replaced the way children used to spend their free time. In the current world, children are known to spend almost 87% of their free time playing with such devices (Kronenfeld, 2009). Different researchers have indicated the importance of children having physical activities. It helps their body to break down some fatty acids that can lead to major diseases including obesity. Parents have also been reluctant to these issues since they think that is safe for their children to play where they can be able to see them for security purposes. My proposed policy of childhood obesity should be enacted through the modification of education laws. This can be through the introduction of some of the policies that ensured that children are given a maximum amount of time for them to have their physical activities (Kronenfeld, 2009). The government can apply this law by introducing it to the school syllabus for every school making it mandatory for children to have some free lessons where they could engage in serious physical activities. It is also advisable for the government to train teachers who would be employed to different schools and their primary role would be to lead children in conducting these physical activities. Some of the schools have introduced such programs, but the problem is that they do not have qualified people who can lead the children in doing those physical activities. This results to children doing things that are not helpful to their body (Kronenfeld, 2009). The trainee should be well equipped and skilled to be able to know the different types of physical activities that would be helpful for those children. By the government enacting those laws in the school syllabus, it would make it mandatory for the school management to ensure that all children are engaged in meaningful physical activities. It would be made important like any other school subjects. For the school to ensure that this activity is taken seriously by every child, there should be the interdiction of exams at the end of that education program concerning physical activities. This would ensure that children take this program very serious as it will be part of the subjects that determines their results.

Some of the existing laws can affect my advocacy efforts in several ways. One of the ways that they can be a barrier is that there is a law that ensures that production of any time of food as long as it is not dangerous for human consumption. Many companies have even sued the government when they try to abolish the production of certain foods as those companies argue those foods are not harmful in any way. The main reason such companies should be regulated is that their food products are harmful when taken for a long time. This should be reason enough why the government should try to formulate those policies (Calkins, 2010).

The existing education law does not include the physical activities as mandatory for all the children in the country. This has given power for the children to decide for themselves if they want to engage themselves in physical activities or not. This can be a huge barrier to my advocacy since it would look like denial the rights of children to choose what they want to pursue in their career.

One of the methods that I would use to influence the legislators is the use of campaigns to enlighten the public how obesity has become an epidemic in the country. By making the public aware of the serious issues that about obesity, they would even support the move of influencing legislators to enact the law. Most of the legislators are known to formulate rules that are good for the general public (Reagan, 2013). The influence of the media can be a useful source of ensuring that those laws are implemented in the fight against obesity.

The obstacles that are likely to be experienced is the issues of violating the children rights to choose the type of activities concerning their well-being, by introducing physical activity as mandatory for the children, it would be like interfering with their rights. This is likely to face stiff critics from different people who think that this issue has been there for a long time, and people should find other means of fighting obesity. The enacted laws that regulate the production of other types of nutritious food are likely to face stiff opposition from those companies since they believe that their products are safe if they are not taken for a long time.

References

Kronenfeld, J. J. (2009). Health care policy: Issues and trends. Westport, Ct: Praeger.

Calkins, D., Fernandopulle, R. J., & Marino, B. S. (2010). Health care policy. Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell Science.Reagan, M. D. (2013). The accidental system: Health care policy in America. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press.