Campaign Against Obesity
Obesity as a Contemporary Societal Issue
According to World Health Organization (2014), around 2.8 million people die every year due to obesity. Obesity is a condition characterized by a weight that is more than the healthy range. This condition leads to many negative health conditions, such as coronary heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, stoke, certain types of cancer, mental illnesses, and others. Currently, it is estimated that there are around 78 million obese U.S. adults (“Adult Obesity,” 2015). What makes the issue worst is the fact that adults are not the only ones who are at risk of premature death. College students are also at risk of obesity; thus, the term “Freshman 15” was coined (“15” pertains to 15 pounds). This refers to the phenomenon in which freshmen students gain significant weight during the first year in school due to the college lifestyle (e.g., unhealthy eating habits and lack of physical exercise) (Miller, 2011). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than 5 million college students are affected by obesity (Miller, 2011). Aside from health problems, obesity also leads to significant financial loss. According to the American Heart Association (2015), the health care cost associated with obesity-related diseases amounts to $190 billion annually. Obesity is associated to many risk factors. This includes genetics, health condition, and age – all of which cannot be controlled (“What Causes,” 2012). However, there are also controllable and preventable causes that lead to obesity, and these are lifestyle and environment. A sedentary lifestyle together with over consumption of food is one of the leading causes of obesity. There is no doubt that many Americans are not living an active lifestyle. People wake up and take their car to their workplace, spend long hours sitting in front of the computer, and end their day by relaxing in front of the television while eating unhealthy processed foods. In fact, studies show that there is a link between obesity and watching television at a minimum of 2 hours a day (“What Causes,” 2012). This does not include the hours spent sitting while using the social media, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. On top of this inactive lifestyle is the unhealthy environment, characterized by the availability and powerful marketing of fast foods, processed foods, and oversized food portions (“What Causes,” 2012). All of these aspects, which are prevalent in today’s society, contribute to the reason why obesity remains a controversial contemporary issue.
The Need for Communication Campaign About Obesity
Despite a common knowledge that obesity leads to many diseases and even death, more and more people continue to gain an unhealthy amount of weight. Thus, this condition has been considered as an epidemic (“An Epidemic,” n.d.). In the year 1990, only 15 percent of the U.S. population is obese, but when 2010 came, the rate increased to 25 percent or more for the 36 U.S. states (“An Epidemic,” n.d.). There are many things that trigger this epidemic, things that relate to lifestyle and environmental factors. For instance, people, especially grade school and undergraduate students, commonly spend an enormous amount of time sitting to do their school work or relax in front of the television. This means that instead of being physically active and burning some calories, they sit for long hours that make them store more calories in the process. It is especially important to focus on these students because according to Ruth Reilly, the assistant clinical professor of nutrition in the University of New Hampshire, they are a “very understudied population” in terms of weight problems (Janeway, n.d.). This is why communication campaign about obesity needs to be expanded. If there are lots of factors that trigger obesity, there should be a campaign that will help in shielding the society from this debilitating condition.
Campaign Strategy: Lifestyle Change
Specifically, this campaign aims to promote lifestyle change. Because obesity is a product of poor diet and sedentary lifestyle, these two aspects are the main target of the campaign. The goal is two have a group of participants who will take the challenge of exercising three times a week and who will boycott fast food restaurants. In addition, this group will have to replace fast foods with low calorie meals. Their weight loss progress will be monitored and reported via communication tools to encourage others to take the challenge and conduct the same lifestyle change.
Target Audience
This campaign targets grade school and undergraduate students ages 17 to 26. These students are the perfect target because they are almost always busy with academic-related activities. They are at risk of sedentary lifestyle and poor diet because of their busy schedule.
Social Media: An Important Tool for the Campaign
For this campaign, social media will be the primary tool for communication because it is cost-friendly, flexible, and can reach a significant amount of people at the fastest time. Specifically, the campaign will focus on using Facebook, Instagram, and Blog.
As of the last quarter of 2015, there were around 1.59 billion active Facebook users (“Number,” 2016). This is why it remains as the most popular and widely used social media around the world. By using Facebook for the campaign, the target audience will be aware about the issue of obesity. They will be able to monitor the progress of the initial participants of the campaign, and they will have the ability to get involved with their lifestyle change as they can post and share their insights, feedback, and questions through Facebook. In addition, the different features of Facebook will serve the entire campaign well. For instance, with the ability to post just about anything, followers of the campaign’s Facebook account will be able to see the materials that contain information about the negative effects of obesity. Likewise, using the Facebook account, pieces of information and materials from different organization (e.g. Obesity Society) that work against obesity may be shared and reposted for the followers to see. Most importantly, Facebook offers affordable paid campaigns that allow anyone to advertise and reach active users even if they are not yet followers of a specific account.
Another powerful tool that will be used for the campaign is Instagram. As of December of 2014, there were 300 million active Instagram users (“Number of Monthly Active Instagram,” 2016). Because of its popularity, it is also a great tool for carrying out the campaign against obesity. What makes this different from Facebook is that it is primarily a photo sharing social media platform. Because humans are visual creatures, the attention of the target audience can be easily captured through interesting images. Instagram will be helpful in telling the audience about the adverse effects of obesity. More importantly, Instagram can be linked with the Facebook account, which means that updating the two at the same time, as much as possible, can be done.
In addition, details of the important events related to the campaign will be released on Facebook and Instagram. The campaign will organize multiples conferences that aim to introduce the audience to healthy lifestyle through various activities. The activities will include speeches and performances from experts. Also, the meetings will have discussions that track the initial challengers’ progress. This will include their experiences, difficulties, feeling and new ideas for the campaign.
Preliminary Sources for the Campaign
The following is a list of preliminary sources that will be useful for the campaign:
Online
Adult Obesity Facts by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Childhood Obesity: Causes and Consequences by Sahoo et al.
Food Advertising and Childhood Obesity by David Ashton
Behavioral and Psychological Factors in Obesity by Collins and Bentz
A review of the psychological and familial perspectives of childhood obesity by Latzer and Stein
Summary
Because of the seriousness and severity of the effects of obesity, an expanded communication campaign about this contemporary issue is important. Overall, the campaign aims to encourage college students to change their lifestyle by being more active and by avoiding fast foods that offer high-calorie meals, which contributes to weight gain. With the right preliminary resources about the topic and the right plan that aims to use the social media, starting the campaign with a certain level of efficiency and effectiveness will be possible.
References
Adult obesity facts (2015). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
An epidemic of U.S. obesity: U.S. obesity trends. Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health. Retrieved from http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/an-epidemic-of-obesity/
American Heart Association (2015). Understanding the American obesity epidemic. Retrieved from http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/WeightManagement/Obesity/Understanding-the-American-Obesity-Epidemic_UCM_461650_Article.jsp#.Vtg5r3194vc
Childhood obesity facts (2015). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html
Janeway, J. (n.d.). Preventing the freshman 5, 10, 15, 40. Obesity Action Coalition. Retrieved from http://www.obesityaction.org/educational-resources/resource-articles-2/weight-loss-surgery/preventing-the-freshman-5-10-15-40
Miller, D. (2011). Fighting the obesity epidemic on college campuses. USA Today College. Retrieved from http://college.usatoday.com/2011/11/07/fighting-the-obesity-epidemic-on-college-campuses/
World Health Organization (2014). 10 Facts on obesity. WHO. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/obesity/en/
