Introduction
The Healthy People 2010 (HP 2010) is a health promotion and a disease prevention agenda for the nation and was introduced in the year 2000. It aims at identifying the most significant preventable threats to the health of the citizens and to establish national goals to curb these threats at all cost. It provides a general idea that can be used by different people, communities, organizations as well as professionals and curriculum developers to come up with workable health programs to foster a healthy nation. The Healthy People 2010 vision is characterized by 467 science based goals which are further organized under 28 chapters.
Main body
It is in line with this HP 2010 vision that this paper develops a proposed program in recognition of the great need for health promotion and disease prevention. This paper will develop a program that will be piloted to the citizens living at Warren township of Illinois state. More so the government state department of health of Illinois has indicated in its recent study that health nutrition and exercise habits has in the recent past contributed to three of the leading causes of death; cancer, diabetes type 2 and heart diseases.
Despite the broad range of communities in need to be recognized, this paper will look and develop a proposed program which can be introduced at both private and public universities nation wide that specialize with diet and exercise that will help the people of Illinois to live a healthy life. After the implementation of this program, it will have immense benefits to the aged or rather the senior citizens of the nation (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Healthy People 2010).
The proposed program‘s main objectives is to establish a relevant education as we as a training program in diet and exercise science. The program aims at introducing a Bachelor and a Master program in Diet and Exercise in universities to offer students an advanced study in both theory and application of nutrition and exercise science. This proposed degree programs include concurrent enrollment in the Bachelor of Science and masters of Science degrees with thesis program with both BS and MS degrees awarded jointly upon completion of this program. According to this proposal, this program will serve as a good model for other interdisciplinary programs already in use in various universities in conjunction with ministry of health.
This proposal for this program is as a result of careful observation of health behaviors among the citizens of Illinois and in particular the aged living at Warren Township. This proposed program will collect its data from the grassroots; that is from the aged and the incoming university students. The method of collecting the data will mainly be through interviews as well as oral and written questionnaires. The analysis of the collected data shall be based on Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) Household Component.
The respondents in this proposed program will be the aged people from the Township of Warren. This proposal also will incorporate weighted logistic regression models especially in examining the factors contributing to overweight and obesity among the aged people residing at Warren Township. The proposed program shall conduct a door to door interview as well as visiting government institutions such as hospitals as well as health departments within this particular area. In addition to these, the proposal intends to further receive information from the non-governmental organizations as well as surveys both from the recent past and the most current ounces.
A data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey indicate that over 60% of the aged people from Warren Township are overweight and more than half of them are obese (Weddle, D 2000). Over the last decade, the numbers of overweight related illeness have almost doubled to twenty-five percent. Further, a study has shown that in every ten overweight adults, at least four are obese bringing the figure to be the heaviest state in the whole nation. It has been observed that more than half of the Warren aged persons do not engage in exercises or physical activities that are necessary to provide health benefits.
Both the past and the most recent data give a suggestion that obesity and other related diseases are not likely to end soon (Anderson, J 1998). This epidemic will lead to significant increase in the prevalence of chronic diseases like cardiovascular diseases and diabetes type 2. There has been a projection by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics that the employment of nutritionist and dietitians will rise by twenty percent between the year 2000 and 2010 due to the increased preaching on health promotion and prevention through dietary eating habits.
Objectives of the Proposed Program
The program will instill in students the understanding of dimensions of issues facing professionals in the field of dietary and exercise science and most importantly identifying health related interactions between the nutritients and the exercise. The students should also be in a position to evaluate and synthesize dietary, synthesize as well as exercise programs for promoting and maintaining health they should be in apposition to conduct research, analyze data and interpret them and consequently apply the theoretical information to solve the practical issues.
If this proposed program will be implemented, the 80% of the graduates of this particular program will secure themselves placement in a supervised dietetics programs. Seventy five percent of the graduates will get employment in cardiovascular rehabilitation programs as well as health clubs, community health services, health fitness centers among other related programs by the first year of completion.
Description of the program
The proposed academic program is on Diet and Exercise under the Bachelor of Science and a Master in Science with a thesis program. The students will be awarded after successful completion of this program. However, this program is interdisciplinary in totality such that one will be said to have completed the program after completing both the BS and MS degree. According to this proposal, the BS and MS degree program will consist of 122-125 undergraduate credits and further 40 graduate credits. This proposed program is designed to be completed within a period of 6 academic years. However, this will be determined by the student’s selection on major units or research area of interest which the students pursue to complete the degree.
In line with this proposed program, the interested students in Bachelor of Science and Masters of Science in Diet and Exercise shall be enrolled and admitted as freshmen in either of the appropriate program areas; dietetics or health promotion and human performance in the department of health science, food and nutrition or food science and Human Nutrition.
Students will be admitted to this program based upon: GPA, GRE, successful completion of the required coursework, at least two recommendation letters and lastly a comprehensive application letter stating individual’s professional goals and research areas of interest. While the students perusing the bachelor degree for forty hours while those pursuing masters degree will be required to have a minimum of thirty hours in addition to a complete and comprehensive thesis.
References
Anderson, J (1998). The role of nutrition in health promotion and disease prevention programs. Journal of American Dietetic Association, 98(2), 200-208.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Healthy People 2010.
Weddle, D. (2000). Position of the American Dietetic Association: Nutrition, aging, and the continuum of care. Journal of American Dietetic Association, 100(5), 580-95.