Essay On Health Promotion

Health promotion is important in the prevention of diseases and negative health behaviours in the mass public. It cost’s the NHS a lot more to cure or treat the disease than it does to promote a healthier lifestyle. Health promotion is ‘the process of enabling people to increase control over and improve their health’ (Ottawa H.P. Charter). In the 1950s the world health organisation worked to get individuals interested in and educated about their own health. The building of healthy public policy is related to the decisions made at all levels of the government and the work of other organisations who aim to improve health. The campaign ‘Healthy Child Healthy Weight’ is aimed the prevention of unhealthy weight in children, which will lead to obesity either now or in adulthood and later life (Scottish Government, 2011). The campaign works closely with schools, finding this as a key organisation to help combat childhood obesity. The campaign takes into consideration Scottish policy ‘Route Map towards Healthy Weight’ which also places a large focus on tackling obesity in children, to base their interventions on. Also it reflects the ‘Getting It Right For Every Child’ approach by putting the child and their family at the centre of the interventions and providing support so children can get the best start in life (Scottish Government, 2012). The understanding that families, parents as well as children must be included will have a great impact on the success of the campaign; since these are the people who make the decisions regarding their child’s eating habits and creating good dietary behaviour.

In Scotland over one million adults and over 150,000 children are obese. Scotland has the third highest level of obesity per population, after t...

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...nts should be limited during the periods of time children are likely to be watching TV and should only have a limited amount of air play per day.

In conclusion the ‘Healthy Child Healthy Weight’ campaign can be very effective in reducing overweigh and obesity in children. Obesity is a major problem in today’s society with the level of occurrence rising meaning the cost to the NHS to treat the consequences increasing. Intervention in childhood will be beneficial to start the behaviour change process early where habits have not been instilled for a great length of time. Working with families will help the child strive for a healthy weight, as they will be able to provide healthy meals and encourage physical activity. The cost of the campaign is an issue to ensure the campaign keeps running, further funds must be sourced to provide more interventions in local areas.