Public Health

Themes and Questions Surrounding Childhood Obesity

The problem of childhood obesity continues to raise discussions on its cause and the best approach that can be implemented to bring an end to the problem. Numerous research has been conducted about the topic with experts calling for a lifestyle change and appropriate physical exercise. The major themes surrounding this topic is how the feeding habits of children lead to obesity and the contribution of parents towards the problem. It has been established that bottle feeding is the leading cause of obesity. Researchers have advocated for breastfeeding as the alternative to the issue. These questions raised have seen researching conducting studies to understand the issue fully.

Epidemiological Methods

Epidemiological methods vary based on the kind of disease or health problem under investigation. For the case of childhood obesity, the health problem is concerned with the cause and effect relationship. In this case, the analytical epidemiological method will be appropriate as it will seek to incorporate data from different types of study (Woodward, 2013). The incorporation of data will provide an opportunity to compare and make conclusions about child obesity.

Techniques

The technique that will be sued for this study is descriptive. The narrative technique helps to document childhood obesity based on its occurrence, time, place, and the person. Under this technique, the main focus would be to collect information from different sources relating to the age of the children affected, how it occurs, gender and the location where there is a higher prevalence.

Approach

The approach to this study would be cross-sectional such that it would analyze exposure and health standards (Page et al., 2016). The approach provides a multidimensional perspective of analyzing the problem with the aim of expanding the scope of understanding as well as improving the research design.

Data Collection

The data collection for this study will rely on both primary and secondary sources. Past research would be used to give the background of the study as well as making an argument for the current study. Primary data can be collected from the sample size and later analyzed for comparison with past findings of other researchers (Woodward, 2013). The data collected will be both quantitative and qualitative and different approaches such as the use of questionnaires will be employed.

Statistical Measures

Numerous statistical measures can be used for this research, but ratios and rates will be appropriate. Since the variables can be analyzed based on gender and age, the use of ratios will be appropriate for this kind of research.

Analysis

The analysis of data will rely on statistical models of comparison. Regression analysis as person correlation coefficient will be used for the analysis of the data (Page et al., 2016). The outcome of the analysis will then be used to explain the hypothesis, and the research questions developed.

Literature Review

A lot of research is available on the topic of childhood obesity. Different authors have researched this issue while investigating different phenomenon about childhood obesity. Sahoo et al. (2015) in their research sought to uncover the causes and consequences of childhood obesity. The findings of this research represent the discussion presented before and provides a background of understanding the cause and effect of the issue in this new study. Wang et al. (2013) in their research investigated the prevention programs concerning their effectiveness in preventing childhood obesity. The findings of the research are crucial in the analysis of existing programs as well as giving future direction in policy. Cunningham, Kramer & Narayan (2014) investigated the incidence of childhood obesity with the findings uncovering the group of children at risk of childhood obesity and the environmental factors that lead to such incidence. Other authors have also investigated different issues relating to childhood obesity which will be crucial in understanding this problem as well as developing better solutions of preventing the spread and incidence as well as helping children already living with obesity.

Contributions to Public Health

The purpose of public health is to help in disease prevention by promoting good health practices. The findings from this research will provide recommendations to public health officials. The contribution can further be directed toward formulating policies that would help reduce the incidence of childhood obesity. The other focus would be on providing the right education and training to families and the public on the best nutrition that should be provided to children to reduce the risk of childhood obesity.

Problems

· Do different lifestyles during pregnancy play a role in childhood obesity once children are born?

· What nutritional practices exposes children to the risk of overweight and subsequent childhood obesity?

· Will policy formulation and implementation be the lasting solution to childhood obesity?

Epidemiologic Study Type

A cross-sectional study will be appropriate for this topic as it provides diversity in researching and analyzing the problem (Page et al., 2016). Childhood obesity is a multidimensional problem that requires a multidimensional approach to understand and address existing problems fully.

Outcomes and Results

The outcome of this study would be to understand the role of lifestyle during pregnancy in childhood obesity as well as nutrition during the early stages of childhood. The results from this study will point out the leading role of different lifestyles such as eating habits of a pregnant mother towards obesity of the unborn children. The results will further show that poor nutritional practices such as denying children the right to breastfeed for at least six months contribute to obesity. Besides, the analysis of all these issues will point out to general policy formulation and implementation as the solution to the underlying problems.

References

Cunningham, S. A., Kramer, M. R., & Narayan, K. V. (2014). Incidence of childhood obesity in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine, 370(5), 403-411.

Page, M. J., Shamseer, L., Altman, D. G., Tetzlaff, J., Sampson, M., Tricco, A. C., ... & Moher, D. (2016). Epidemiology and reporting characteristics of systematic reviews of biomedical research: a cross-sectional study. PLoS medicine, 13(5), e1002028.

Sahoo, K., Sahoo, B., Choudhury, A. K., Sofi, N. Y., Kumar, R., & Bhadoria, A. S. (2015). Childhood obesity: causes and consequences. Journal of family medicine and primary care, 4(2), 187.

Wang, Y., Wu, Y., Wilson, R. F., Bleich, S., Cheskin, L., Weston, C., ... & Segal, J. (2013). Childhood obesity prevention programs: comparative effectiveness review and meta-analysis.

Woodward, M. (2013). Epidemiology: study design and data analysis. Chapman and Hall/CRC.