My selected primary prevention topic is dealing with overweight and obesity among the youth through healthy nutrition, making the right food choices, and physical activity in the city of Seattle. Seattle is a seaport city that is found on the west coast of the United States. The city is based in King County of the State of Washington. According to the 2018 census, the city has an estimated population of 744,955 residents. Seattle is also the largest city in the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region in North America. The metropolitan area of Seattle’s population stands at 3.94 million and is ranked the 15th largest in the city in the United States. According to the 2016 data, Seattle is ranked as the top 5 fastest growing cities in the United States, with an annual growth of 3.1 %. The city has mixed races, with the majority being the native Indians and the white Americans (Seattle, Washington Population 2019, 2009). The problem of obesity among the youth is a growing one, and the city of Seattle is not left out. According to new data from the National Survey of children’s health, 4.8 million children aged 10-17 are reported to have obesity (Stateofchildhoodobesity, 2019). Among the leading factors for the rising number of obese youth is the choice of food and lack of exercise. In a study done in Seattle, it was found that having a food or grocery store in the immediate neighborhood would often affect the special diet where people that live in low-income areas or those living in minority communities will have limited access to full service of a food store that sells health foods. The same studies were also done in Philadelphia, Detroit, and New Orleans (Drewnowski et al., 2016): these are areas that are often characterized by poor housing, racial differences, and inadequate food supply.
The main course for concern regarding obesity is the growing direct costs of childhood obesity in the country where it is estimated that about $14.3 billion is used each year to treat obesity cases. Also there are the immediate costs, where current childhood obesity cases means that there are going to be more direct costs in the future if the issue of overweight children and adolescents are allowed to continue living a lifestyle that will make them more obese adults. This will eventually lead to health and economic burden due to high rates of obesity in the country.
Currently, Seattle city uses various programs to promote a healthy lifestyle. There are various community programs that ensure the youth remain active and stay out of problems. For example, there is the YMCA youth community, which has established a resource center that discusses various challenges facing the youth like drug and alcohol prevention, youth empowerment, physical activities, and skills development. The YMCA is exciting as it provides the youth with an environment that ensures the embrace good choices about life and how to lead a healthy and fulfilling life. During my time at the YMCA have been overseeing all the Group fitness classes and disease prevention programs. There is a program for the kids with a referral from their Dr. called ACT! The program offers a lot for the youth including cooking class and swimming for the youth also during summer there was a farmers market in the lobby. Other primary prevention resources include leaflets, school exercises programs, personal discipline in regarding to diet and controlling meal times in both schools and youth institutions. Apart from this, there is a health and wellness program that teaches the community about various health choices, including positive dieting and exercises, among other factors, affect health promotion. This program is essential in reducing the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the community and increasing knowledge on healthy diet choices and living within the community context.
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There is a low population of individual’s healthy meat diets like seafood, quality meat, fruits, and vegetables. Also, in many cases, people tend to select diet regarding convenience. That is why there is a high population of individuals taking fast food and food with added sugar and fats (Drewnowski et al., 2016). This was evident from the finding were the social-economic and cultural aspects were represented by different food and retail store, including food composition and prices. The monetary value of the residents was also estimated using the price tag on each food item where a col
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