A healthier town and campus
Introduction
Community-based interventions that promote active living are promising approaches in overweight and obesity prevention among campus and town residents. Media plays a significant role in ensuring success of these community-based interventions as it enlightens individuals on the importance of adopting healthy lifestyles to reduce overweight and obesity cases. Regular physical activity is important in improving health and as well reduces the risk for overweight and obesity, but students who live further away from recreational facilities become less active and are in danger of being overweight that those that live closer to such facilities. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that students around the campus and the community residents have access to these recreational facilities in an effort of reducing overweight and obesity cases in the community (Chan & Woo, 2010). According to Ten Have, de Beaufort, Teixeira, Mackenbach, & van der Heide (2011), having recreational programs is crucial in reducing children’s risk of obesity and overweight as it reduces the occurrence of these cases by up to 10 percent. To be able to reduce obesity and overweight cases, policymakers need to increase recreational spending by ensuring that more resources and funds go to communities with fewer recreational programs. The current overweight and obesity epidemic resulting from inactive living is driven by multiple factors that need to be addressed on several front lines. These entail the expansion of school physical education activities, discouraging students from pursuing sedimentary lifestyles as well as advocating for an activity-promoting environment. In regards to the above information, the paper presents a media project advocating for active living among the campus students and community residents to be able to reduce the overweight and obesity cases in the community.
Statement of purpose
Adopting a healthy eating habit and regular physical activity are the only ways of maintaining a healthy body weight. The campus students and community residents need to be aware of this information; therefore, communication and media involvement is necessary (Fitness & Health, 2006). The project will develop a media program of creating awareness about the issue in an effort of reducing the associated cases. The project will also aim at establishing a gym facility at the campus “ Fit Gym Facility” as there is no gym facility where the students can do regular physical activities to help cut down the obesity and overweight cases. The facility will also be of significant use to the community residents, as they will also be allowed to use it. Some little fee will be charged for the gym services that will be utilized for running the gym operations. The media program objective is encouraging and supporting the community and students for them to be able to make healthy lifestyle changes at an individual level while creating an environment that advocates for a healthier lifestyle through a better-planned built environment (Sparks, 2013).
Youths and students usually spend most of their time at school, so the availability of an obesity reduction program and regular physical activity facilities is crucial. Having regular physical exercises is essential in the reduction of the body’s weight as it helps in improving the sensitivity of insulin among the youths. According to research, aerobic exercises have been shown to reduce both the diastolic and systolic blood pressures that are quite important in weight monitoring. According to Aranceta, Moreno, Moya, & Anad (2009), resistance training after physical exercise helps in preventing hypertension re-occurrence among adolescents already affected by the condition. Doing regular physical activities is also psychologically beneficial for individuals regardless of their weight as it helps in increasing their self-concept, and self-esteem while decreasing their depression and anxiety levels. Being healthy does not need to be difficult or expensive. It is about taking crucial steps of integrating physical activity into the daily routines and making good healthy choices. It is, therefore, paramount for individuals to shift their thinking and adopt healthier lifestyle choices.
Obesity and overweight predispose individuals to quite a number of chronic diseases that are preventable especially in the elderly persons and youths that negatively affects the quality of life (Ross et al., 2009). In the university and community surrounding almost one out of three students or residents suffer from obesity or overweight. The problem has gone further to affect preschool children in the community as over 17 percent suffer from overweight while 14 percent are obese. This shows the intensity of the problem that needs to be addressed quickly and fast. Thus, the media project aims at educating the community and students on the importance of healthy food eating and active living as key methods of reducing overweight and obesity cases. The media program looks further to partner with community organizations to strengthen its operations.
Communication strategies
The media communication project main objective is creating and spreading awareness on the importance of adopting an active living lifestyle to reduce overweight and obesity cases. To be able to reach the intended audience it is important to be strategic enough by adopting good communication strategies through the right channels (George, Carlson, & Valacich, 2013). Our media project will use the following communication strategies:
Information provision and education
An information provision educative approach will help in reaching out to the intended project target groups that are the obese and overweight students as well as the community residents. A social mobilization campaign will be used in educating the target groups, as the project is not merely just a communication project, but also a long-term community project. Strategies that will be employed in this approach include the development and distribution of materials on obesity and overweight such as posters, brochures, flyers, and pamphlets that will be used in the provision of the education process. These materials will contain the risk factors associated with overweight and obesity and ways of preventing the conditions. The approach also aims at using audio-visual, and video materials such as presentations and film shows that will educate the target on the importance of maintaining an active living to promote health.
Societal mobilization campaigns
Social mobilization reflects the view that, information provision to the target group is not enough to initiate a change of the initial behavior. This is so because a host of environmental, psychological, cultural, and practical factors impinges on the decision-making process of the individuals. It is, therefore, crucial to develop new strategies to motivate individuals to adopt the new change generated by taking an active part in the change process. In doing so, community organizing will be done to empower the students and the community as a whole to be able to build their capacity of decision-making. This important step will help the community residents to be able to recognize their problem and make a decision on how they can act collectively to solve the problem at hand. Special events will be used in mobilizing the target group such as public awareness campaigns, dinners, and concerts in the school and around the community. Other communication techniques that will be used include newsletters, facts sheets on obesity and overweight, banners and t-shirts that will be quite helpful in reaching out to the target groups and mobilizing the neighborhood. Networking and establishing linkages by collaborating with other community organizations will be essential for the future sustainability of the media project. Building alliances with other community agencies, organizations, and institutions that can help solve the problem will further strengthen the project (Merry, 2012).
Media theories utilized
Use of media in our program is essential as media communication makes individuals powerless to resist the messages that are carried along in the media channels. The media addicts and drags it customers to its content. According to the media social action theory, media content is considered as a silver bullet shot that penetrates the hapless audience who in turn participate in the mediated communication by constructing meaning from the content that they receive. Thus, it is important to employ the media communication strategies discussed previously. In line with the agenda setting theory, our media project determines the issues of concern to the public rather than taking consideration of the public views. This is because the issues that will receive the most significant attention from mass media will become the general issue of debate and discussion. The media has to address a particular issue for it to become relevant to the audience otherwise; it will become marginalized in the public minds. By utilizing this strategy, the active living program to reduce obesity and overweight cases will be able to penetrate the intended audience with ease (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).
Our media project is also in supported by the social responsibility and free press theories. These theories place a greater accountability on the social media by advocating for content accountability to the society. The media is free to advertise any information, but the content should always serve the public good. It is, therefore, important for the social media to make sure that it complies with these obligations (Sparks, 2013). Our media project is aimed at sensitizing and educating students and community residents on the importance of adopting active living to reduce overweight and obesity cases in the community. Its aims at helping the people to make healthier lifestyle choices to improve their health that is also in line with the media development theory that proposes that the press should subordinate its content to the societal, political, and economic development.
Conclusion
The media project aims at solving the overweight and obesity problem that affects the campus students and the community residents. Adopting a healthy eating habit and regular physical activity are the only ways of maintaining a healthy body weight. The university students and community residents need to be aware of this information; therefore, communication and media involvement is important. The project will establish a gym facility at the campus “Fit Gym Facility” as there is no gym facility where the students can do regular physical activities to help cut down the obesity and overweight cases. In communicating with the target audience, several communications strategies will be employed such as posters, brochures, flyers, and pamphlets that will be used in the provision of the education process. Other plan strategies include public awareness mobilization campaigns, dinners, and concerts in the school and around the community as well as the use newsletters, facts sheets on obesity and overweight, banners and t-shirts that will be quite helpful.
References
Aranceta, J., Moreno, B., Moya, M., & Anadn, A. (2009). Prevention of overweight and obesity from a public health perspective. In Nutrition Reviews (Vol. 67).
Chan, R. S. M., & Woo, J. (2010). Prevention of overweight and obesity: How effective is the current public health approach. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. http://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph7030765
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George, J. F., Carlson, J. R., & Valacich, J. S. (2013). Media selection as a strategic component of communication. MIS Quarterly: Management Information Systems, 37(4), 1233–1251.
Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons, 53(1), 59–68. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003
Merry, M. K. (2012). Environmental groups’ communication strategies in multiple media. Environmental Politics, 21(March 2015), 49–69.
Ross, R., Blair, S. N., Godwin, M., Hotz, S., Katzmarzyk, P. T., Lam, M., Macdonald, S. (2009). Prevention and Reduction of Obesity through Active Living (PROACTIVE): rationale, design and methods. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 43(1), 57–63.
Sparks, G. G. (2013). Media effects research: A basic overview. Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Ten Have, M., de Beaufort, I. D., Teixeira, P. J., Mackenbach, J. P., & van der Heide, A. (2011). Ethics and prevention of overweight and obesity: An inventory. Obesity Reviews. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2011.00880.x
