Childhood obesity is one of the common lifestyle challenges facing children living in Adams County and various other parts of the United States. Indeed, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2013, Community overview, para. 1), the prevalence of childhood obesity in Adams County was 18.6% in 2013. Obesity is a risk factor to cardiovascular diseases and other chronic illnesses (Frandsen, Pennington, & Abrams, 2014). Indeed, it is the most common risk factor for type 2 diabetes (DeBruyne, Pinna, & Whitney, 2012). Poor nutritional practices and sedentary lifestyle are some of the most common risk factors for obesity (Meester, Zibadi, & Watson, 2010). This project seeks to prevent and reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity in Adams County, Ohio. In the project, parents will be educated on how to prevent obesity in their children.
The subjects for this project are the parents living in Adams County, Ohio. The parents will be recruited from public places such as shopping malls, parks, general practice homes and hospitals, and cinemas. During the recruitment exercise, the prospective participants will be approached and informed of the project first. They will then be asked if they have children. Parents without children will not be eligible to take part in the project. The parents who meet the criterion for participating in the project will be asked to sign a consent form.
This project is intended to last for two months. The formulation stage will last for five days. This stage will involve gathering of resources and appraising the project to determine its feasibility. It will also involve the recruitment of volunteers and participants. The next stage, the implementation state, will involve the actual project. It is intended to last for one month and two weeks. Lastly, the evaluation stage will take one week.
This project will require health educators to conduct workshops where parents recruited in the project will be taught the strategies to prevent their children from becoming obese. The health educators will be volunteers. However, financial resources will also be needed to facilitate the workshops and other aspects of the project. For instance, financial resources will help in booking venues for the workshop and providing transport services among other activities. Other resources needed for the project include educational materials such as hand-outs, newsletters, audio-visual materials such as a PowerPoint projector and audio cassettes.
The project will be monitored based on certain indicators that include the following: the number of recruited volunteer health educators, the number of recruited participants, and retention rate of the participants (defined in this case as the percentage of the newly recruited participants who continue attending the workshops after the first week of the workshop). The project targets one hundred participants to be recruited from across the county. The retention rate targeted in the project is 80%. The percentage of the number of participants recruited of the total target for the project will be calculated to determine whether the project will be proceeding as planned or not.
Workshops will be organized where the participating parents will be taught ways in which they can prevent their children from developing obesity. The dates and venues of the workshops will be communicated to the parents at a convenient time through the means each will prefer. At the end of the project, an evaluation will be performed. In this case, tests will be administered to the participants to evaluate how much they will have gained from the workshops. If 70% of the participants will score at least 60% in the test, then the project will be said to be successful.
The possible barriers to the project include busy schedules by parents and bad weather. Bad weather will be addressed by scheduling the workshop during seasons associated with good preferred weather. Busy schedules, on the other hand, will be addressed by conducting the workshops on weekends since most parents are likely to be free during weekends. The project is highly feasible since it does not require heavy employment of resources. The financial resources will be provided by the institution. Volunteers will also come from the institution. Based on the level of success of the project, the improvements will be effected and the project expanded to cover other counties.
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Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2013). Community Profile: Tri-County Region (Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas Counties), Colorado. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dch/programs/communitiesputtingpreventiontowork/communities/profiles/obesity-co_tri-county.htmTop of Form
DeBruyne, L. K., Pinna, K., & Whitney, E. N. (2012). Nutrition and diet therapy. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth / Cengage Learning.Top of Form
Frandsen, G., Pennington, S. S., & Abrams, A. C. (2014). Abrams' clinical drug therapy: Rationales for nursing practice. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.Top of Form
Meester, F. D., Zibadi, S., & Watson, R. R. (2010). Modern dietary fat intakes in disease promotion. New York: Humana Press.
