Method
Obesity is a medical condition that remains a national healthcare concern. Obesity among children and adolescents requires extreme attention as such a state has outcomes that influence the future of an individual. In the United States, the prevalence of the disease among individuals aged 2-19 years is 18.5%, which means that 13.7 million children and adolescents are affected (Kornet‐van der Aa, 2017). The purpose of the study is to discover what factors lead to the development of obesity. It will do so by analyzing previous studies to explore the underlying processes and reveal the predisposition of its condition, focusing on children and adolescents from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Understanding the factors that lead to the development of obesity can help to influence the future well-being of the population. Obesity is associated with the early development of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and hip replacement at a young age (Zylke & Bauchner, 2018). Moreover, obesity has psychological consequences, such as lower self-esteem and a biased attitude towards an obese individual, which can also impact the future worldview and lead to severe psychological issues.
Additionally, obesity causes a financial burden; hence, the problem with obesity affects not only healthcare but also the government system, and prevention of it should be the field of interest for both parties. Knowledge of possible factors should help to create an effective way of preventing obesity among children and adolescents or establish a more efficient treatment and management plan.
Research Method and Design Appropriateness
Creswell and Poth (2016) discuss various approaches to the research methodologies and present five different types: narrative research, phenomenological research, grounded theory research, ethnographic research, and case study. Narrative research focuses on the individual, and it relies on spoken or written words. Hence, it collects stories from an individual to explore their life experience, or collects data from previous studies and re-analyses them.
Phenomenological research is a type of qualitative research that focuses on the similarities in the studies group to reach an understanding of the specific phenomenon. Grounded theory is a research methodology that uses inductive reasoning, and it involves the establishment of theories through data analysis. Ethnographic research focuses on the interaction with participants, and researchers interact with them in their real-life environment. The case study focuses on the specific case that is being examined in detail.
Approaches to research tend to be divided into two fundamental categories, though a third has recently emerged through the combination of the first two. According to Nestel et al. (2019), they are quantitative research, which attempts to analyze specific numbers using statistics, and qualitative research, which focuses more on people’s experiences. Hence, quantitative research uses experiments or surveys and relies on statistics.
Qualitative research implies observation and interview methods that focus on the meaning, experience, and views of participants. Therefore, qualitative research is more appropriate for my research as I collect and analyze the information from scholarly articles relying on the experience of the participants. At the same time, exact data that can be retrieved from surveys is also crucial for the research as it aims to discover exposed groups, which requires information such as age or nationality that is best collected through the survey. Hence, the qualitative-quantitative methodology is the most appropriate for my research.
Population
As the United States is the country that reports the highest numbers of obesity, the exposed population that is located in the U.S. needs to be discovered. The study conducted by the US Preventive Services Task Force (2017) informs that obesity rates keep increasing among specific populations, such as African American girls and Hispanic boys. Various genetic and non-genetic factors contribute to the prevalence of obesity among particular populations. The research focuses on children and adolescents aged from 2 to 19, as 32% of them in the United States are either overweight or have obesity (US Preventive Services Task Force, 2017). This figure represents a significant issue that requires urgent effort to be addressed.
As factors that are associated with obesity include socioeconomic status, the issue needs to be investigated on a national level. In the population, habits, and activities of different groups need to be discovered. Revealing the pattern of behavior in groups of the population can help in the understanding of what leads to obesity and how to prevent it. Identifying the ethnic minority population in the United States can help to find the association between social and environmental factors and the onset of obesity.
Sampling Frame
It is best to obtain some understanding of the problem before attempting to research it. A systematic literature review was conducted to reveal factors that influence children and adolescents (Kornet‐van der Aa, 2017). The criteria for the research were children and adolescents with a minimum age of 2 and a maximum age of 19. The data was collected to reveal if socioeconomic factors influence the onset of obesity; hence, the primary focus was on socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The determination of obesity is based on the body mass index (BMI), where is a value that is equal to or over 15 percentile for age and sex is considered obesity.
The study can compare its results with those produced by other researchers to see whether they support the findings. For instance, Yusuf et al. (2019) conducted a study in which researchers selected people with obesity under 18 to participate in a survey. A total of 71,811 surveys were completed throughout the study. The survey investigated various characteristics, such as demographic factors that included sex and age, and race/ethnicity. The groups by age were divided into 10-12 years group, 13-15 years, and 16-17 years. The race category has been divided into non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, and others. The survey included an inquiry about the family structure, poverty level, and educational level to explore the social influence of obesity.
Data Collection
The data that has been collected is quantitative as the research relied on the exact measures from the survey, such as age, race. The integrity of the data is protected as all the information that was coming from the survey has been collected from reliable sources, such as PubMed. Moreover, the survey that was utilized for the study is sponsored by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) (Yusuf et al., 2019).
Additionally, it was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Baylor College of Medicine (Yusuf et al., 2019). The other study, conducted by Kornet-van der Aa (2017), collected evidence on obesity prevention and treatments for individuals with disadvantageous backgrounds. The researchers checked the title and abstract of each study by two independent reviewers. They used a methodology that tested the quality of studies using the quality assessment tool. Standard data extraction form has been used to choose information regarding participants, settings, and duration.
Data analysis
The first survey that was conducted used the data of the Pearson-Chi-squared test. It is a statistical test that is used to evaluate the difference that arises between the sets. In the case of the survey, the association between the exposure and outcome variables has been analyzed, which allowed researchers to establish various models. The researchers constructed three models: overweight, obese, or mixed (overweight or obese). Therefore, 30.6 million children participated in the survey, and it discovered that 15.19% are overweight, and 15.77% are obese. (Yusuf et al., 2019). Such results help to understand that obesity is still prevalent among children and adolescents, and the same percentage of individuals are at risk of becoming obese shortly.
The main findings reveal the association between poverty and obesity, stating the obesity level is higher among the population with a low income, and Hispanics are more likely to be overweight and obese. Moreover, living with a single parent showed to contribute to the development of the condition. The environmental factors also influenced exposure to obesity. For instance, children who had private healthcare coverage and were involved in public institutions showed lower rates of obesity. Adversely, those individuals who had public insurance coverage were more exposed to overweight and obesity.
Therefore, the study revealed that 31% of the surveyed population are obese, and it revealed the association between sociodemographic and environmental factors and obesity rates (Yusuf et al., 2019). The sex factor showed that females have an increased likelihood of becoming obese; however, the difference is not sufficient, which means that both males and females constitute the risk group. Interestingly, no association has been found between the age of participants.
Contrastingly, the survey revealed that social and environmental factors constitute a drastic influence on children becoming overweight or obese. Individuals that live in a family with both parents and those who have higher income are found to be less predisposed to obesity. Environmental factors included the analysis of access to the sidewalk as obesity is also associated with low physical activity. The correlation between access to the sidewalks and the increase in overweight has been determined.
The second study focused on investigating the association between the body mass index (BMI) and predisposition to obesity. One of the studies has been reviewed, and no difference in BMI between the intervention and control group has been found. Contrastingly, in the other study, intervention effects on BMI were observed in a subgroup of girls (Kornet‐van der Aa, 2017). It found that participants in treatment studies had “higher initial BMI than participants in preventive studies and were, therefore, more likely to gain from the intervention in terms of a reduction in BMI” (p.586). Various prevention studies have been reviewed to reveal how effective prevention and treatment interventions are among adolescents from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Therefore, my research shows that sociodemographic and environmental factors highly influence the development of obesity. Moreover, it shows that preventive programs and treatment intentions are accurate and have shown a reduction of overweight based on the examination of the BMI. These findings prove the importance of the implementation of the prevention programs, especially among children and adolescents from disadvantaged backgrounds, as they constitute the most exposed groups.
References
Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2016). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. SAGE publications.
Kornet‐van der Aa, D. A. (2017). The effectiveness and promising strategies of obesity prevention and treatment programmes among adolescents from disadvantaged backgrounds: a systematic review. Obesity Reviews. Web.
Nestel, D. Hui, J., Kunkler, K., Scerbo, M. W., & Calhoun, A. W. (eds.). (2019). Healthcare simulation research: A practical guide. Springer.
US Preventive Services Task Force. (2017). Screening for obesity in children and adolescents: US Preventive Services Task Force recommendation statement. Web.
Yusuf, Z. I., Dongarwar, D., Yusuf, R., & Bell, M. (2019). Social determinants of overweight and obesity among children in the United States. PMC. Web.
Zylke, J., & Bauchner, H. (2019). Preventing obesity in children. JAMA Network. Web.