Health Care Policy

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze a health care policy regarding obesity which has currently been addressed in the state legislature of the United States. It further determines the effects of the policy on the advanced practices of nurses. The development of obesity is thought to be traced to hereditary, monetary sociological and political causes. The central legislature has involved the educationists, guardians, heredity and promoters, in the obesity plague. The comparison of the same policy has also been made between United Kingdom and United States of America.

Health Care Policy

Introduction

In the United States, health concern remains offbeat as contrasted with different advanced countries. The United States has the most innovatively escalated medicinal rehearse in the globe. It likewise spends something greater than any viable country on medical management.

Over the past years obesity has led to cardiovascular illness, and since thirty years following, it was considered as the most obviously imperative wholesome ailment in well-to-do nations. Obesity has sharply effected American adults, minors, and youth. Practically several out of a few mature Americans are either overweight or large. In youths, overweight predominance has increased three times from five percent to fifteen percent betwixt the 1970s .Over nine million American kids and youths are overweight and the rest nine million are on the verge of being overweight. (Harrison, 2005).

Discussion

Obesity

Obesity is becoming an increasing health concern worldwide and in developing as well as industrialized nations. Obesity is associated with increased risk for many serious health conditions as well as reduced quality of life, discrimination, and social stigma, resulting not only in shorter life span, fewer years of healthy life, and lower quality of life for the obese individual but also increased burden on the healthcare system. For instance, in the United States in 2006, it was estimated that medical costs for obese individuals were $1,429 higher (per person) than for normal-weight individuals and that overall medical costs associated with obesity were $147 billion. For the years 1987-2001, one study found that more than a quarter (27 percent) of increases in medical costs were associated with diseases related to obesity.

Obesity is customarily defined as increased body weight caused by excess accumulation of body fat (adiposity), but because direct measures of the percent of body fat are cumbersome, for broad-based studies such as population surveys, obesity for adults is usually defined using the Body Mass Index (BMI; also known as the Quetelet Index). The BMI is calculated by dividing body weight in kilograms by squared height in meters. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a person with a BMI under 18.5 is underweight, a person with a BMI in the range 18.5 to 24.9 is normal weight, one with a weight from 25.0 to 29.9 is overweight, and a person with a BMI over 30.0 is obese. Some also classify levels of obesity so that a BMI of 30.0 to 34.9 is level I, a BMI from 35.0 to 39.9 is level II, and a BMI of ...