PUBLIC HEALTH

Public Health (health promotion)



Public Health (health promotion)

Introduction

The concept of health promotion is based on the interpretation of social and cultural health, and disease. The health promotion is the process of enabling people to gain greater control over their health. It is a dynamic and evolving concept referring to the management of health of people in the context of their daily lives. Health promotion concept promotes the attainment of the highest level of physical, mental, and social development.

Another definition that defines the health promotion suggests that health promotion is the process of facilitate individuals and communities to boost control over the determinants of health, and thereby to improve their health. It includes the education, prevention, where people act in coordination to policies, systems, and lifestyles, through advocacy, empowerment, and building a social support system that enable them to live a longer healthy life.

Under these definitions, health promotion is a mechanism of enabling people to have greater power for making choices for well-being improvement. Determinants of the health promotion have been identified in the first definition, whereas second definition emphasize on the components of health promotion that enhances the capability of individuals towards health improvement. This definition places emphasis on social and environmental intervention instead of individual behaviour.

In the context of this essay which is analysis of individual and community development health promotion approaches in health eating, health promotion must aspire to generate scholarly work that will enhance the authors practice on her day to day practice as a health promoter. The author will evaluate determinants of health and illness and how they interact. Different approaches and levels of health promotion will be analysed whilst applying a theoretical mapping to health promotion and how they relate to different epistemology.

Discussion

The World Health Organization (WHO) uses Body Mass Index (BMI), a common measure for weight status, to define obesity. BMI is a score calculated using the individual's body weight (in kilograms) divided by the square of his or her height (in meters)

BMI = weight(kg). height(m)2

Although BMI provides the most useful and convenient population-level measure of weight status, because it does not measure body fat directly, it can only be used as a preliminary screening tool for weight-related health risks (WHO, 2006). Further assessments such as skinfold thickness measurements and family history are necessary for diagnosis. In adults, obesity is defined as those with BMI score greater than 30. The measure is universal for both men and women across ages. For children, because they are still growing, however, it is much more difficult to determine the cutoff.

There is therefore no global standard for determining childhood obesity. Nonetheless, it is commonly accepted to use age and sex specific BMI, or BMI-for-age, as guide. In children and adolescents, BMI must be age and sex specific because for these populations, the amount of body fat changes with age and is different in boys and girls (CDC BMI for Children and Teens, ...