Obesity and Its Effects in The United Kingdom

In this essay, I will discuss obesity in adult and the effect it has on their health and lifestyles. The focus of this essay will be on United Kingdom (UK) population. Obesity is known as the fat that is present in the body which is extra and can be harmful in a way of causing disability, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, high cholesterol or death. Body Mass Index (BMI) is used to calculate obesity. BMI can be calculated by using a person’s weight in kilograms, divided by person’s height in meters. If the BMI of a person is above 30, it is classified as an obese, below 25 is said to be overweight. In the past it is observed that obesity is only present in the countries with high income but now the countries with low income are also facing this problem.

In Europe, UK has the highest obesity rate with 26.9%. One person in every four is suffering from obesity in the UK. Among the 100% population of UK, it is said that 61.7% of the people are either obese or overweight. Scarborough et al. (2011) stated that UK’s highest obesity rate is mostly due to poor diet and lack of exercise. Managing the weight of patient is the most leading practice for nurses. Nurses play an important role in identifying if a patient is obesity or at risk to become obese and should be able to support these patients by giving them advice. This discussion is about the leading problem like obesity and socio-economic factors that are affecting it, like education, environment or green space. Also, the impact on gender and ethnicity along with physiological factors like depression and stress will be discussed. The policies to tackle this health issue will also be discussed.

There are a few signs, which are estimated to find out the inequalities of obesity. The factors that are listed up to define the estimation of obesity, relates to logical regressions and overweight rate for every group that is social or economic. These copies are used for the scope of categories in which gender, age, ethnicity, occupation status and the status of health is included. There are many socio-economic factors that affect obesity, such as housing, education, environment or Green spaces, health literacy and income.

There are three possible types of relationships that are built between education and obesity. First one is the random relation that is formed to improve obesity to increase number of education, the second one is a reverse random relationship that demonstrates, better education leads a healthy life and thirdly, relationship is absence of the random link between health and education by which education and obesity both are ignored (Bodor et al., 2010). Scrivano et al. (2017) said there are many factors that are unobserved and has a major effect on obesity which may include background of the family, their genetics or the differences that individuals have. The above factors are also used to elaborate the fact that educated people are healthier. The people who are educated had use of the information related to health in a better way than the people who are less educated or not educated. By education, the person has ability to improve the thinking skills and access the information that is useful. Patterson (2018) stated that people who have less education about the content of energy of food may lead their life towards obesity. Studies have shown that in lower social class, non-obese people have better food knowledge as compared to obese people of the same group. There is a possibility that the people with high education can set their lifestyles in a healthy manner and have more knowledge about the risk that can make a person obese. Although studies have shown that, educated groups are most likely to eat healthier than non-educated groups, it is also likely they will eat unhealthy due to time factor. Educated groups can have a very busy schedule, that time will not permit them to cook healthy food at home. So, although they are aware that it will be healthier to cook a meal at home than to buy, they will still order meals from restaurants to save time. This type of habit can also increase obesity in educated groups. It is known that there are several methods by which the effect of education obesity is driven out. This link is important as it results in many policies related to education, to set trends in education-based policies.

The interaction between genetics and the environment is considered as the midway to regulate balanced energy and the weight of the body. However, genetic has impacts on the weight of the body and has gained attention in the past years. There is a noticeable increase in popularity of obesity in the last 30 years. Mayne (2015) said that, environmental change is known to be the biggest factor of obesity. An interaction of the environment that is said to be gene-environment interaction, is the one in which the individuals, who are genetically capable had a major risk to develop obesity. Such environment has a facility of high energy intake and the expenditure of energy are low. Environment goes towards weight gain when there is absence of energy-dense foods and decrement in the demand of physical activities.

Gretebeck et al. (2017) demonstrated that in the past years, there has been several studies that were done, and these studies resulted in the rate of health-related quality of life in women are lower than the men. This is not only figured out in the people who are healthy but also figured in the people that are under medical treatment. Whereas the health-related quality of life for individuals that are suffering from severe diseases are less in females as compared to the males. Jonikas et al. (2016) by studying the relationship between health and obesity, it is concluded that obesity is directly proportional to health rate. It takes place among the people who has low health-rate. The direct cause of obesity is not clear, yet it is a reason for many major health issues. Women who are suffering from obesity have lower health rates as compared to men. In UK, obesity is high in women as compared to men. There are 25% of men who are obese and 30% of women who are suffering from obesity in UK. There are more obese women than in men because women are more susceptible to obesity due to physiological features. However, the difference between women and men is not much.

Obesity is one of the main challenges that are faced by the people all over the world. Obesity affects the countries that are developed or the countries that are still developing. Around 244 million people in the world are migrating from the countries they were born in and living in other countries. Ethnically, there are structured patterns that occurs in the commonness of obesity. The most important thing is to understand the nature of these relationships in the formation of the policy for the prevention of obesity. Khorgami (2015) said in UK, the rate of obesity of black people is higher than white people, 51% of black people are suffering from obesity. These obesity problems in different ethnicities can be avoided by making efforts in creating a better and healthy environment for living. There are three factors in which obesity in different ethnicities depends. First are the differences in behaviours of different ethnic groups directs towards obesity. Second the differences between the attitudes of the individual and the cultural norms that are related with how the weight of the body affects obesity. Lastly the factor that affects obesity is the affordability of healthy food. Healthy foods tend to be very expensive and working families with low income may not be able to afford expensive foods. They will be limited with time and therefore will not be able to do the constant shopping for cheap healthy foods. So, they will rather go for cheap and unhealthy foods or whatever that it available to eat. A great public response is needed to reduce the effects of obesity in different races and ethnicities. Moreover, the policies, programs, effort from government and the environment that plays supportive roles are also needed to overcome obesity.

Mannan et al. (2016) states that the connection between obesity and depression is not one-way connection. It is observed from the studies that both obesity and depression feed each other. It is a self-destructive act. According to the researches it is said that obese people are suffering more from the disorders that are related to moods like depression, as compared to those who are not suffering from obesity. There are many negative causes of obesity such as low self-esteem, self-image that is poor and the social isolation, these all factors are known as the main contributors for causing the depression. People suffering from obesity found themselves stereotyped and discriminated against. The obesity also leads to many chronic diseases like diabetes or hypertension that has a great link with obesity.

Stress and obesity has also dual relationship with each other. The impact of stress and the health of the people vary from person to person. Tomiyama (2018) many of the people gain weight during stress. The people suffering from stress usually prefer the comfort food that contains a great amount of fat and sugar. Which act as the stress releaser to the brain. This is also observed that the people who are suffering from stress usually eats more snacks and that meals and intake of vegetables are fewer, this leads a person to be obese. These people also do not get themselves involved in physical exercises as the stress is a main cause to promote physical inactivity. Workplace stress causes a person towards consuming fast food which results with obesity.

Our Health guidance were mainly set to target obesity in adults and the health risk involved. Health professionals, including nurses have a duty of care to educate themselves with resources and services available in their community or at their workplaces. It is necessary for health care professionals to build a good relationship with their patient to advise them on health risk concerning obesity and the right path to take to help them in gaining a healthy diet, a healthy weight and a healthy lifestyle. This advice includes physical activities and even psychological help if needed. Our Health guidance were also set to improve health and wellbeing in communities or societies to make them aware of the importance of physical activities, like exercise.

According to the NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council) code of conduct, it is necessary for nurses to avoid the bias and everyone should be treated with respect. The obese people stay longer in the hospital because they take a long time in recovery, so the nurses should particularly act polite to the obese people. It is likely for some obese patients to stay longer in hospitals, depending on how effective the medications are. An example of this could be an obese patient with diabetes. They will have to stay in hospital even after their treatment to ensure their blood sugar is stable.

A nurse plays a leading role in the reduction of obesity. As it is stated by Lineberry and Ickes (2015) that nurses should have to prevent illness and work for the betterment of the health of the individuals. A nurse plays a major role when it comes to obesity, as the doctors are not always present with the patient, but nurses do. So, the patient listens to them as they take care of them during their stay at the hospital. A nurse can prevent a patient from being obese by giving the patient a proper diet chart and by keeping the check and balance that either the patient is following the diet or not. A nurse is also capable of referring obese patient or patient at risk of obesity to dietitians for help. The motivational sessions of nurses with the patients will have a great impact on them and they will be able to recover soon. Legally nurses owe the patients who are obese, and the nurses are responsible for their actions. Nurses should provide a primary care to the obese patients, the care like self-referral, GP referral and the referral to the acute care with the guidelines to lose the weight before the procedure is started.

A great part of the people with the low education are the one who are suffering from obesity. In UK, a few people of the higher socioeconomic group are the victims of obesity. The people who have low education suffers more than the people from high education because they can build the understanding about the food that is harmful for them or the food that can cause obesity. Nurses plays a role in preventing obesity as they are the one who stays 24/7 with the patients, patients’ starts listening to them more. There are many physiological factors that affects obesity. These factors are all related with obesity. With physiological factors there are some socio-economic factors as well which majorly affects obesity.