BUSI 1689 Management, Leadership & Enterprise in Public Health Organisations
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Essay- Tackling Obesity
According to the work of Scally (2021), the government of the United Kingdom has implemented far-reaching reorientation and restructuring of the public health infrastructure of the country with the development of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). The introduction of a powerful medical-industrial complex was first discussed in the 1960s in the US. The impact of this economic sector on the UK was enhanced after 2010 as it was offering the contraction of the major NHS services which are provided to the private sector. Here it can be stated that the public health system of the UK has improved over time. However, Obesity is one of the common public health problems in the UK which is estimated to impact at least 1 adult in every 4 adults and approximately around 1 child in every 5 children aged from 10 years to 11 years (NHS.uk, 2019). Obesity is a complex disease that involves an excessive amount of body fat, in the eyes of the general public, is a preventative measure for decreasing BMI (body mass index). It is a major health issue of public health both internationally as well as within the United Kingdom (Welbourn et al., 2018).
Evidence suggests that it is associated with an increased threat of death and severe illness from the Covid-19 pandemic era. Regarding the management of these issues, the government of the United Kingdom launched campaigns for encouraging all the adults in the country for losing weight as well as for tackling obesity in the year 2020 which outlines the policies for supporting healthy eating as well as expanding NHS services of weight management. In 2016, the United Kingdom government also launched a plan for action that set out the figure of actions for primarily focusing on reducing the consumption of sugar along with increasing g the physical activities among adults. In the year 2018, an action plan was also published in the country for setting ambition for reducing the gap and halve obesity between adults from least as well as most areas deprived by the year 2030 (Bray et al., 2018). As comparing women, as well as men in the United Kingdom in 2019, 31 percent of people, were overweight, 29 percent of adult women were overweight and 27 percent of men in the country were obese in the country.
Issues
The major factors affecting people tackling obesity factors in the country are highly multi-factorial as well as complex. Determinants of health are socio-economic like education, housing, income, and employment which influence the people's health in shaping overall issues of health. The royal society for public health RSPH is a multi-disciplinary and independent charity dedicated to improving the health of the public, also it helps in informing the practice as well as policy for supporting the communities in the country and individuals for living healthy lifestyles (Tan, He and MacGregor, 2020).
The department of social care along with health care in the country has also outlined some measures which the government of the UK will be taken for helping people to lose weight. This can be through tackling the obesity approach by the government for addressing the health inequalities. Expanding the services of weight management by which more and more people in the country get support for losing weight. The government of the country has also acknowledged the food environment which can make it easier and harder to gain as well as maintaining a healthy weight 554+9-by ending promotions concerning sugar, salt products and high fat in all the stores which encourage promoting healthy choices. Also, the United Kingdom is very much committed to improving health and people’s life affected by obesity or overweight, as tackling obesity is a priority in the UK for more than twenty years. The government also responded through proactive strategy to obesity through a specific focus on children as well as policy initiatives to emerge.
Efforts
The government of the UK has announced recently the plans of restarting the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) in the September month of 2021 and to enhance the weighing frequency from overall two times to once every year during primary school education for addressing the crisis of obesity. However, this can lead to concerns over undue emphasis on the physical appearance of the children which can further lead to stigmatization and bullying (Badesha et al., 2021). Besides this, as part of the plan of the UK’s government, the information regarding the weight categories of children will be given to the parents so that they can be motivated for the positive diet and changes in the activity level of the children. However, this provision needs appropriate support for the motivation of parents. Hence these efforts are needed to be expanded beyond characterization and quantification. There is the requirement of a governmental approach that can shift the focus from individual actions to an empathetic approach. A whole-society approach can also be taken where all the stakeholders of the society are involved to ease indecisive actions (Badesha et al., 2021).
According to Martin (2019), servant leadership is considered the ideal style of leadership for the enhancement of empathy in the organisation. This is the most appropriate style of leadership for the hospitals and the healthcare systems as it focuses on team strength, development of trust, and fulfilling the patient's need. As is stated that there is a need for an empathetic approach of the UK government towards the issue of obesity. Regarding this, the characteristics of servant leadership match with the issues. Hence it can be adopted as the leadership style for the formation and management of these policies.
RSPH is also putting efforts into tackling obesity in the country, as society is drenched with many unhealthy options along with opportunities that affect a healthy lifestyle, but the organization recognizes and puts the solution in their hands by creating an environment that remains in power to modify. But on the other hand, RSPH is making several calls for transforming the street environment around schools and homes with the shared objective that all the children in the country should have the right to use for the healthy route home (Balogun et al., 2020).
Improvement for tackling obesity
Prevention for initiatives of obesity is seen from the wider context of health and social care for achieving long-term movement for moving forward to better health of the public. As per the Government and political point of view, the regulatory bodies in the UK must finance the development of trails in the community by providing sponsorship for buying fresh fruits along with nutritional information. The intervention of social care and public health helps in pushing passage policies as well as laws for intervening the cost-effective for public health issues in the nation. Hence this can be related to the systems theory. Systems theory can be described as the widely accepted approach which is used in the healthcare systems study. According to this theory, healthcare quality and patient safety are emerging properties for the entire system of healthcare. It follows the principles that the enhancement of the outcomes of healthcare are required to be formed on the basis of systematic appreciation of the entire system which is linked to the results (Bielecki and Nieszporska, 2019). Under the obesity initiatives, there is a need from the other segment of the society to participate which can be achieved through following the systematic theory of management.
Organizations should also put efforts into monitoring and providing progress towards improving the health system of healthy food while sharing and providing all the relevant information for protecting the people that will go to help the government of the United Kingdom for evaluating an organization by progressing towards targets (Psaltopoulou et al., 2019). RSPH can also form a different alliance as well as network for sharing relevant information for building a constituency for making changes along with for reducing the obesity issue that will be going to help in tackling the issue related to obesity. For reversing the epidemic of obesity in the country, community efforts should be focused on providing and supporting healthy eating as well as active living in different settings (Nawaiseh, 2019).
Conclusion
Obesity has been seen as a person's difficulty that is treated mainly by family, remedial and psychological methods. It is the main health concern of public health both globally as well as within the United Kingdom, as being obese as well as overweight is connected with an increased threat of several normal diseases. These strategies focus on modifying the community structure as well as societal norms through the change in the policy and by implementing the wide intervention that will help in falling the disclosure to the promote environment of obesity in the huge population as well as it is also embattled for the avoidance strategy that directs the universal strategies at subpopulations (Gittelsohn et al., 2019). For the achievement of this, there is a need for servant leadership and a systematic approach that can support this. Also, RSPH is putting hard work into tackling obesity in the nation, as culture is drenched with many unhealthy options along with opportunity which influences a healthy lifestyle, but the organization recognizes and put a resolution in hands by creating an environment that remnants in power to adapt. Building healthy environments in the home as well as in schools is important which is a major matter in the United Kingdom is facing and public health dispute. Thus, RSPH by providing availability of obesity material will be going to help in preventing and controlling obesity in the country through a wide range of environmental approaches by maintaining a healthy lifestyle of people in the country by taking all the relevant actions for combating obesity.
References
Badesha, H.S., Bagri, G., Nagra, A., Nijran, K., Singh, G. and Aiyegbusi, O.L., 2021. Tackling childhood overweight and obesity after the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 5(10), pp.687-688. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc8443223/
Balogun, B., Baker, C., Conway, L., Long, R. and Powell, T., 2020. House of Commons Library Briefing Paper: Number 9049, 24 November 2020: Obesity. https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/36855/1/CBP-9049.pdf
Bielecki, A. and Nieszporska, S., 2019. Analysis of healthcare systems by using systemic approach. Complexity, 2019. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/complexity/2019/6807140/
Gittelsohn, J., Novotny, R., Trude, A.C.B., Butel, J. and Mikkelsen, B.E., 2019. Challenges and lessons learned from multi-level multi-component interventions to prevent and reduce childhood obesity. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(1), p.30. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/1/30/pdf
Martin, M.A., 2019. Servant leadership characteristics and empathic care: developing a culture of empathy in the healthcare setting (Doctoral dissertation, Antioch University). https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?accession=antioch1572254537330104&disposition=inline
Nawaiseh, H.K.A., 2019. An-M-Health Intervention Using Smartphone Apps to Improve Physical Activity and Monitoring Sugar-Sweetened-Beverages in College Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial (Doctoral dissertation). https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/186374/NAWAISEH-DISSERTATION-2019.pdf?sequence=1
Nhs.uk. 2019. Obesity. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/obesity/#:~:text=The%20term%20obese%20describes%20a,children%20aged%2010%20to%2011
Psaltopoulou, T., Tzanninis, S., Ntanasis-Stathopoulos, I., Panotopoulos, G., Kostopoulou, M., Tzanninis, I.G., Tsagianni, A. and Sergentanis, T.N., 2019. Prevention and treatment of childhood and adolescent obesity: a systematic review of meta-analyses. World Journal of Pediatrics, 15(4), pp.350-381. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stamatios-Tzanninis/publication/334493015_Prevention_and_treatment_of_childhood_and_adolescent_obesity_a_systematic_review_of_meta-analyses/links/5ead96f9a6fdcc7050a47be7/Prevention-and-treatment-of-childhood-and-adolescent-obesity-a-systematic-review-of-meta-analyses.pdf
Scally, G., 2021. A new public health body for the UK. bmj, 373. https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/373/bmj.n875.full.pdf
Tan, M., He, F.J. and MacGregor, G.A., 2020. Obesity and covid-19: the role of the food industry. bmj, 369. https://www.sochob.cl/web1/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Obesity-and-covid-19-the-role-of-the-food-industry.pdf
