Obesity in African Americans

According to the existing facts, obesity levels have more than doubled in African American adults and children since the 1970’s. The obesity predominance level during 2010-2011 among African American adults was the highest in comparison to other race ethnicity groups. The research of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) demonstrates that African American women have higher rate of adiposity than the individuals from other ethnical groups in the U.S. The obesity rate for African American female constitutes 66%, and this level is 1.4 times greater than for Caucasian women (47%). The current figures presented by Ogden et al. (2014) depict that African American women, who suffer from overweight or obesity (BMI>/= 25 kg/m2) constitute 82% of all females suffering from obesity, African American female who suffer from obesity (BMI>/= 30 kg/m2) constitute 56.6%, and African American women who suffer from extreme obesity (BMI>/= 40 kg/m2) constitute 16.4%. On the other hand, African American men demonstrate different statistics, thus, those who have problems with overweight or obesity constitute 69.2%, male suffering from obesity make 37.1%, and those male who suffer from extreme obesity constitute 6.9%. In addition, currently, 35.9 % of African American children between 2 to 19 years old are overweight or obese, contrasting to 31.7 % of all adolescents of the same age. That is why African Americans are at bigger risk to get negative effects to their health due adiposity. For instance, in 2010, the predominance of diabetes among African American adults was approximately twice as large as that for all other adults. All of the above-mentioned figures present the rational for the statement that obesity is a crucial issue for the whole African American population. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to investigate the reasons that lead to overweight, best practices to solve the problem and a number of practices that are appropriate for personal Social Work practice implementation.
Physiologic and Behavioral Pathways
The issue of obesity among African Americans is a complex question and involves many factors, especially concerning its prevention and treating practices. The researchers focused on physiologic and behavioral pathways. In particular, they tried to research ethnic differences related to metabolic syndrome indicators, controlling hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, insulin resistance, density of glucocorticoid receptors, and physical activity that have a significant influence on appearing of chronic diseases and obesity. Scientists state that if the main aim is early intervention, it is more reasonable to focus on aerobic fitness and C-reactive protein (CRP). Research results also demonstrate that a deregulated HPA axis might cause obesity and cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, obesity can be treated with a help of regular physical activity because African Americans have lower physical activity and are under bigger psychosocial stress than representatives of other ethnic groups. Therefore, researchers offer health providers to motivate sedentary patients to increase their physical activity. Intensity of physical activity should depend on the patients’ weight and diabetic status.
The Most Successful Practices for Dealing with Obesity
There are three categories of practices utilized by physicians and social workers in order to deal with the issue of obesity. The first category concerns diet, physical activity, and energy balance. The second category of practices concerns environmental and societal determinable factors of food intake and physical activity. The third category of practices concerns prophylactics, therapy and appliance of clinical treatment and community entourage. Physical activity performs a main function in the elevating obesity prevalence. In fact, shortage f physical activity is a major contributor to the impetuous growth in obesity among African American population. Aerobic fitness is crucial in the treating obesity with a greater aerobic fitness being connected to a decreased hazard of obesity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, etc. African Americans have a lower average maximum aerobic exercise abilities contrasted to other population categories, while African American male have been acknowledged to have 7% less exercise ability than others. The centerpiece of non-operative therapy of obesity is diet and exercise, with psychological therapy as an advisable annex for all patients. Nevertheless, moderate aerobic fitness is connected with lowering of atherogenic lipid and lipoproteins profile in overweight or obese African American population, especially for African American women. Drug therapy might be stated as an addition to regime and physical activity for patients with a BMI 30 kg/m2. Pharmacotherapy is believed to have the most temperate short-term effectiveness but an elevated exhaustion level and a shortage of long-term operability. Surgical therapy is the proper choice for patients with BMI 40 kg/m2, or 35 kg/m2, who have serious chronic diseases or conditions.
Implementation of the Researches in Social Work
The analysis demonstrate that it is reasonable to implement the findings of the research conducted, which state that physical activity (aerobic fitness), as one of the best practices for dealing with African American obesity, plays a critical role in African American population obesity. It will be highly important to promote healthy lifestyle patterns that reduce the risk of being overweight or obese. For example, physical activity, regular meals, and nutrition and weight counseling are all areas where social workers may help to reduce the risk of obesity. In particular, it is crucial to educate sedentary individuals to increase their fitness level through encouraging regular, mild, aerobic, or high intensity activities. It is also important to assess their physical and fitness practice. On the primary level, I, as a social worker with have to utilize new cognitive-behavioral therapy models for African Americans who are obese, by accenting the acceptance of healthy consumption aptitudes instead of appointing restricted and serious regime. On a secondary level, it will be significant to implement physical-grounded interference in alienating obesity or for rising the physical activity level and healthy food selections. Therefore, social worker will cooperate with primary physical. It will assist in elevating the consciousness and evolve particular strategies to impede obesity. This will also help to lower the concern about the visit to physician by concentrating on potency outlook, thus, enabling African American person suffering from obesity to become engage in the behavioral alteration. In the tertiary level, the social worker will have to assist African American individual in lowering the outcomes of existent overweight and obesity.
In conclusion, two researches were utilized for analyzing the problem of obesity in African Americans. One study is about factors that lead to obesity. Scientists found that physical activity plays a crucial role in development of adiposity. It was also determined that obesity increases the risk of appearing other health problems, such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cancer, etc. The researchers offer encouraging people to practice sport. It is important that this physical activity was regular. The second research demonstrates the most appropriate treatment and prevailing practices for African American population suffering from overweight obesity. A number of these practices can be utilized in social work practice for treating African American population, as they help to deal with the problem efficiently, allowing clients feeling comfortable and supported during their treatment.
The post was created by Hallie Green, a professional writer at https://superessay.org/.