Nutrition, Obesity, And Health

Every 10 years there are a set of health objectives contrived with the intention to promote national health and disease preventions in the United States (Healthy People, 2014). This program is called Healthy People and it has been successful at monitoring the progress of health related programs and policies. The current Healthy People initiative, Healthy People 2020, aims to achieve their goals by the year 2020 with the aid and collaboration of state, government, communities, and public/private sectors (Healthy People, 2014). Healthy People 2020 advocates for the progression of health disparities and the health objectives are categorized into Leading Health Indicators (LHI), which determines the topic areas that need strengthening (Healthy People, 2014). The topic area that I will discuss in this paper is on Nutrition, obesity to be specific.

In America, obesity affects 30% of the adult population and there are studies linking obesity to cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke and cancer (Community Preventive Services Task Force, 2009). This increase of obesity rate is also a big concern for employers due to obesity in the workplace. Obesity in the workplace is associated to disability, sick-days, injury, and (Community Preventive Services Task Force, 2009); therefore, costing the organization money and leading to less productivity.

Studies have shown that obesity in the workplace can be prevented and controlled when applied at substantial proportion (Community Preventive Services Task Force, 2009). The objective of Healthy People in terms of overweight and obesity is to increase the amount of individuals at a healthy weight, reduce the amount of obese adults, and increase the amount of adults who participate in daily physi...

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...studies. The data does justify that with health intervention programs in the worksite there is evidence of a small amount of weight reduced; however, the data does not justify whether overweight and obese individuals benefited from the program. The key methodological points to consider with this study is

In conclusion, the purpose of Anderson et al. (2009) review study is to achieve the objectives of Healthy People in terms of overweight and obesity individuals. This review recommends that more worksite should promote physical and nutrition activities, but it does not determine how effective this program is. This review can serve as a guide for health policy makers, employers, and researchers to utilize. For future studies, I will recommend that the size of worksite size, the employee level, and other information such as race and ethnicity to be also included.