Social Media Paper: Los Angeles Social Media Campaign
Overweight and Obesity;
How deficient Knowledge on overweight and obesity related to lack of physical activity and healthy nutrition in the Los Angeles general population?
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Social media campaign
Overweight and obese is the excessive fat accumulation by one that may impair health. To measure the severity of overweight and obesity, one must check the body mass index (BMI) to classify overweight and obesity in adults. BMI is simply a person's weight measured in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters. This social campaign report will focus on preventing overweight and obesity through healthy nutrition and physical activities. Additionally, it will pursue to understand how deficient Knowledge on overweight and obesity related to lack of physical activity and healthy nutrition in the Los Angeles general population.
As evidenced by Bantham et al. (2021, p. 67), lack of knowledge about obesity and overweight constitutes to inadequate attention towards the problem within the general population. This health concern cuts across all populations, and children suffer the most. As the most populous county in the United States, LA county consists of 88 cities and 93 school districts and is diversely populated with more than 9.8 million people. Of this population, 24.3% of adults have obesity, while 20% of school-aged students in junior high school are obese (Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Office of Health Assessment and Epidemiology, 2011). Obese prevalence among the children (preschool-aged) of about 2-5 years is 13.9%, school-aged children (6-11 years), 18.4% and adolescents (12-19 years) at 20.6%.
This figure shows an upward trend because of our population's lifestyles and primarily, lack of knowledge on obesity and overweight. In a report by CDC, school-aged girls of about 20.4% had a higher prevalence of obesity than preschool-aged boys with a 14.3% (CDC, 2015) which can also be attributed to lack of knowledge of the importance of physical activities. In the CDC, 2015 report, school going boys were more physical than girls. Generally, Los Angeles County's prevalence of adult obesity also increased from 13.6% in 1997 to 26.5% in 2020.
According to a 2019 US Census, the racial makeup indicated that 52.1% were whites, 8.1% were black or African American, 14.7% were Asians, 0.8% were Native Americans and Alaskan Natives, 0.3% represented by Pacific Islanders and the other 19.9% were from other races (Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Office of Health Assessment and Epidemiology, 2011). Of these numbers, a significant racial disparity can be witnessed across the races. All these information indicate that lack of knowledge was a key facet in the growth of obesity and overweight rates in Los Angeles.
Health Inequality/ Disparity
Overall, obesity rates have risen significantly in the county, making obesity a leading cause of death since 1999. According to ‘A Cities and Communities Health Report’ on obesity, deaths based on ethnic disparity include Latinos with 29.4%, African Americans with 29.2%, whites with 17.6% and Asians/ Pacific Islanders with 8.9% (Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Office of Health Assessment and Epidemiology, 2011). The primary prevention in the community is the provision of health nutritionists that guide the population on anti-obese nutrition and exercise. However, new methods of cutting weight are emerging, such as surgery, and it is advisable to prevent overweight and obesity by adopting healthy food and practising regular exercise.
The primary cause of obesity and overweight is not only an energy imbalance between consumed and expended calories but also lack of knowledge on the concept obesity and overweight, its demerits and preventions interventions. Therefore, an increase in the intake of energy foods high in fats and sugars is the primary influencer of overweight and obesity. Our sedentary lifestyles, where we have changed modes of transport and increased urbanization, resulting in environmental and societal changes that influence overweight and obesity, especially in dietary and physical activity patterns (Robert Wood Foundation, 2022). Our societies also critically lack supportive policies to combat overweight and obesity in critical sectors such as health, agriculture, transport, urban planning, environment, food processing, marketing and even education.
According to ‘A Cities and Communities Health Report’, the disparity is presented in the prevalence of child and adult obesity across cities and communities in LA County. These findings are constituent with national and international statistics; hence geographical variation shapes the manifestation of obesity among children in LA County (Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Office of Health Assessment and Epidemiology, 2011). However, the strong associations between adults and children suggest that obesity is an epidemic across the age spectrum.
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Primary community and prevention resources
While overweight and obesity are non-communicable diseases and largely preventable, supportive environments and communities are critical in shaping people’s lifestyles by prioritizing healthier foods and regular physical activity schedules to prevent obesity, it is also important that the population must be informed about obesity and overweight, such that they be convinced after reviewing the challenges Obese people go through. In such a case, community centre can be established with an aim of educating the population about preventing themselves from obese and overweight by giving free services such that people volunteer for both education on nutrition foods and physical exercises.
At the individual level, people can limit energy intake from fats and sugars, increase more nourishing foods such as fruits and vegetables and engage in regular physical activities. Importantly, individual responsibility is the only way we can caution our healthy lifestyles. The government can also impose a tax policy on sugar-sweetened beverages to reduce consumption. Food industries can also play a significant role in promoting healthier diets, promoting healthy and nutritious choices for the market.
Currently, Los Angeles health department has come up with preventive measures among them is to promote and support bicycling as an effective response to obesity and physical inactivity within the general population. Therefore, as a result, the prices of bicycles has reduced, and infrastructure support bicycling by incorporates side aisle where people can conduct bicycling. School also has bicycles parking which helps in promoting bicycling. Additionally, health and educational facilities enforce early childhood obesity preventive initiative where food programs have been incorporated to promote healthy eating ion schools and even conduct exercises. Through childhood obesity prevention initiative, the populace become aware of obesity because activities such as participation by the community improves awareness.
Underlying factors
Obesity is closely related to several health conditions, including heart diseases, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, accumulation of cholesterol, asthma, sleep apnea, gallstones, kidney stones, and infertility, among other emergencies of cancers. As stated above, if the obesity and the overweight issue is not addressed, most of our population will be reduced due to deaths caused by obesity-related conditions. We, therefore, need to check on our sedentary lifestyle because obesity and overweight lie within the trenches of the lifestyle one decides to take (Robert Wood Foundation, 2022). While it is true our lifestyle or the way of life affects our levels of overweight and obesity, the focus of prevention should be on educating the populace on the underlying factors such as drug abuse, among others. If there are no prevention methods, we will still have a higher morbidity rate caused by overweight and obesity. Therefore, preventing overweight and obesity through healthy nutrition and physical activities should be practised to reduce the much-witnessed mortality rates.
Evidence-based practice
Changes in lifestyle, educating people about obesity and overweight, nutrition and physical exercise are some methods that can assist obese and overweight people in gaining healthier bodies back. Obesity and overweight are also a household of other diseases such as heart diseases. According to the CDC, an average of 34,000 deaths from heart disease which partly are associated with obesity (CDC, 2015). Therefore, controlling our diet, improving our physical activities rate will help balance calories input and output to fully control other conditions such as heart diseases.
Identification of Data
Of the Los Angeles population, 24.3% of adults have obese, while 20% of school-aged students in junior high school are obese. Obese prevalence among the children (preschool-aged) of about 2-5 years is 13.9%, school-aged children (6-11 years), 18.4% and adolescents (12-19 years) at 20.6%. This figure shows an upward trend because of our population's lifestyles. In a report by CDC, school-aged girls of about 20.4% had a higher prevalence of obesity than preschool-aged boys with a 14.3%. Los Angeles County's prevalence of adult obesity also increased from 13.6% in 1997 to 26.5% in 2020 (CDC, 2015). The data showing the Los Angeles obesity prevalence from 13.6% in 1997 to 26.5% in 2020 is an indication of how people are not educated on the effects of obesity and overweight. Awareness therefore is an important tool in prevention of obese and overweight within a large population. These statistics correspond with the national and national statistics on the levels of obesity and overweight, with a similar trend. This campaign will, therefore, serve as an awareness call toward a large population suffering from obese and overweight conditions.
Social media campaign objectives
Because of the social and technological presence of the Los Angeles population, a social media campaign will be the most effective way of reaching the masses in the shortest time possible. In this regard, the social media campaign objectives will be to educate the population on the dangers of obesity and overweight and its effects. Additionally, the population should be made to understand the many benefits of staying healthy. All this will be directed to the more people who have been fully submerged in a sedentary lifestyle, ignoring exercising. By this, the population’s morbidity rate will reduce by half in the first two years of this campaign, and by the second year, the campaign will have achieved total population awareness. Besides changing from the much-overrated sedentary lifestyles, social media will also educate the population on the merits and demerits of obesity and overweight.
Social Marketing Interventions
Technology today has made marketing easy and cheap. We have more than 20 widely used applications in Los Angeles for social interaction. Maximizing on YouTube alone, there will be a direct link with the population on the effects of obesity and overweight, giving a corresponding solution to the public (WHO, 2022). Such short briefs will be done on other platforms such as websites, Instagram, Facebook and even WhatsApp.
Rational
These interventions above will support the overall objective, which is to educate the population on obesity and overweight and how it relates to lack of physical activity and healthy nutrition in the Los Angeles general population. This in turn will not only prevent overweight and obesity but also promote healthy nutrition educations and physical activities by coming up with discussion post shares which will provide a space for the public to ask and answer some of the questions raised. We can have several suggestions for improving the literature about obesity and overweight. Social media will also educate a large group of people within a short time.
Social Media Platforms
Social media platforms are distinctively different but offer the same services. While others will sponsor this campaign’s objective, others will be keen on following up on how the population responds. In contrast, others will help create a free space where obese and overweight people can have freedom and deliberate on issues about their condition. However, they all will help create awareness, an essential aspect within the scope of prevention of overweight and obesity. Our campaign will use You Tube, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp but they will play different role but key among them is the role of making the populace aware of obesity and how to prevent it. The reason why we are using this application include the usability of these systems by the Los Angeles population. To choose these programs, we conducted a survey of the commonly used applications and You Tube, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp become leading hence, to fully make sure that the population is made aware we decided to use them differently to enforce the objectives of the campaign. All these social media platform will be used in educating the public by using different techniques on how to prevent obese and overweight.
Benefits of social media platforms
With many people using social media platforms, awareness and education has shifted to what we have on the internet, reducing cost burdens on health care facilities by pioneering social media space that reaches many people simultaneously. Therefore, it improves health outcomes and objectives. Further, it develops a professional network where professionals offer services for free to clients to maintain a healthy community. Additionally, social media platforms are used to increase personal awareness of news and discoveries that motivate patients and provide information to the community.
You Tube application is a social media platform which presents audio visual information to clients. Webinars and other seminars will be held on You Tube platforms to also make people participate in creating awareness to the society. As such, videos can be made on how to maintain a healthy community, teaching people about obesity, its dimerits and how best to prevent it. Instagram is an important application because of its popularity to the youths today. Most youths use Instagram services making it easy to reach as many youths and tech them about obesity. Instagram and Facebook social media application will be used to not only create awareness but also help track people who need help because of the participation services that is offered, where a user can talk directly to medical health practitioners. After identifying obese people within our society, we can use WhatsApp application to reach affected people and plan an intervention together.
The benefits of YouTube are to create audio-visual production with an objective to create awareness about obesity highlighting the demerits of obesity. Facebook and Instagram will be used to create awareness to the public and because these two applications have services where a user will respond, the campaign will target those who have obesity and teach them how to contain the problem. Unlike YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, WhatsApp will be used to reach affected people and offer them solutions. Additionally, WhatsApp groups can be made to those who affected such that they may be trained together using readings and even group discussions to help them revert their symptoms as well as sharing experiences within themselves about obesity.
How the target population will benefit from my health message
While using social media, the people of Los Angeles will be free to react by commenting and sharing about overweight and obesity. In return, within the two years of the social campaign, people will have adequate knowledge on how to prevent not only themselves but also the community in entirety.
Best practices for social media
Technology has specific rules that should be followed. While it is true that healthcare messages affect people who may be stigmatized on social media, healthcare marketing must therefore come up with a new way of online bullying, especially on those affected by the health marketing messages. Using social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, among others, is the best option as it reaches the most people, is attractive to the young generation, and is the most effective communication method. To fully enforce best practices rules, bullying and stigma, we will always plan on what to post and how to use social media. Therefore, we will first focus on the topic and feedback to understand our users and how best to reach them. to enforce best practices, we will establish leadership support centre that checks on what we post, establish objectives of the social campaign and check whether the posts represent the goals of the social media campaign. After checking whether, the social media posts align with the goals, objectives and the target audience we will integrate the information with the resources available and finally define workflow processes for getting inputs and approval on social media posts. To fully activate the concept, we will enforce a social media strategy and install qualified personnel to control them, check on our contents before posting it while engaging with users and monitoring and measuring the growth of our online presence.
Stakeholder roles and responsibilities
Obesity and overweight are among the causes of mass death worldwide. Most organizations and health facilities have put in a lot of making sure that the prevention of obesity has been actualized. For the social media campaign on overweight and obesity, I would need to maximize the aspects of technology and maybe develop applications to help obese people practice exercise and nutrition daily. Additionally, I will meet with government bodies to establish policies for imposing more taxes on sugar and meaty substances because of their effects on the general population. I will also meet school officials and educators to facilitate the implementation of policies and procedures for promoting the social media campaign. Additionally, will keep tabs on social media platforms helping interested citizens with whatever needs they may need gearing towards the prevention of overweight and obesity through healthy nutrition and physical activities.
Potential partnerships
Because of the general orientation of obesity and overweight, partnership formation is crucial as it formulates policies geared toward preventing the condition. I will form partnerships with the local healthcare providers, such as interested people, groups and health facilities, as they help in financial and professional referrals to the campaign. Education institutions will also serve a major role in meeting and educating the young school going students, and even tertiary students on the concept obesity and overweight.
Implementation Timeline
Week one will be for opening social media accounts and posting information. In week two, I will attend meeting with government bodies to increase the importation tax on sugary substances to discourage consumption. In week three, I will participate in a meeting with school officials on the introduction of an app that educates about obesity and overweight. Within time, I will actualize my objectives, and after that, I will change the approach to reaching the citizens that do not have social media accessories. After two years, we would have fully implemented full awareness towards preventing overweight and obesity.
Evaluation
After one year, we will re-survey our commitment toward our objectives using the same initial plan of using social media and other applications. Once I receive the results, I will come up with a way forward since I will know the progress of our endeavour within our population. If we would not achieve our objectives by the half milestone, we will redesign using the existing resources to ensure we have completed this project.
Measurable tools
In this social media campaign, we will measure the success of this objective by comparing the pre-campaign and statistics after one year with post-campaign survey statics. The disparity will measure the success or dissatisfaction of the media campaign with the population.
Costs of implementing the campaign
Although social media and technology has cut the costs completely, some costs must be incurred. For this specific campaign, we will need human resources who will be sensitizing the masses and educating them how to prevent obesity and overweight. Other materials needed are; printing leaflets, burners, physical campaign trucks, t-shirts printed with the objective and the message about prevention of obesity and overweight. Because of the masses in Los Angeles City, the campaign strategists will divide the city into four locations. In each location, an estimate of about $300,000 will be used. In totality, the whole campaign will need an estimate of about $1,200,000. The social campaign will stretch for a time of two years to fully sensitize and even realize a positive change within the population of Los Angeles.
Reflection on social media marketing
This social media campaign will use every available option on the tenets of technology to reach many people in Los Angeles, educating and creating awareness on the pertinent issues surrounding obesity and overweight. Additionally, the campaign will use life experiences and examples to show the transitions of once obese people but, through maintaining a healthy diet and conducting physical activities change to normal weight status. Our expected objective is to use YouTube more because most Los Angeles population used YouTube hence making aware of obesity by way of participation and use of audio-visual production to reach more people. This social media campaign will be a source of much health literature surrounding obesity and overweight that other communities can use. Entirely, it will help to maintain a healthier population through awareness.
Reflect on future nursing practice
Future nurses will use the same procedures and processes to inform patients affected by a larger epidemic such as obesity and overweight, Corona, and Flu to prioritize and develop online objectives that harness the ability to create a remarkable social media campaign entirely.
References
Bantham, A., Ross, S. E. T., Sebastião, E., & Hall, G. (2021). Overcoming barriers to physical activity in underserved populations. Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, 64, 64-71.
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. (2015). The CDC guide to strategies to decrease smoking in the community. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/smoking/downloads/PA_2011_WEB.pdf
Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Office of Health Assessment and Epidemiology. (2011). Obesity and related mortality in Los Angeles County: a cities and communities health report.
Robert Wood Foundation. (2022). Adult Obesity Rates - The State of Childhood Obesity. The State of Childhood Obesity. Retrieved 16 September 2022, from https://stateofchildhoodobesity.org/adult-obesity/.
WHO. (2022). Obesity and overweight. Who. Int. Retrieved 16 September 2022, from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight.
