Nutrition and Overweight

By Day 4, post a comprehensive response to the following about your assigned focus area (Nutrition and Overweight)

I have the ability to say firsthand how I would react to being diagnosed with the disease/condition associated with my focus area of nutrition and overweight because I am obese. Being diagnosed as an obese individual has been emotionally and physically draining to me. I have arthritis in both knees, and low self-esteem. I constantly have to work on weight loss and better eating habits. Our textbook states, “Familial pressure to excel, peer pressure to maintain an ideal body size, and media images depicting ultrathin fashion models and celebrities all contribute to the tendency of young girls to set unrealistic goals for their appearance” (Coreil, 2010, p. 145). This statement not only applies to young girls, but to women of all ages. I know that for most of my life I have struggled to keep up with society’s ideal of how a female should look.

Some of the cultural biases involved with being diagnosed with obesity are Southern cuisine, and the fact that people from the south surround themselves with food for all occasions. Southerner’s bring food to the families of those who have lost loved ones as a comfort gesture; we celebrate with food at weddings, reunions, and birthdays. Our textbook states that primary prevention is when “the focus is on activities that forestall the development of pathological conditions” (Coreil, 2010, p. 8). Under this definition, one method of primary prevention would be an active lifestyle and better food choices. Our textbook states that secondary prevention is the “detection of disease or its precursors at an early stage to take ameliorative action that can thwart full development or enable measures to keep the problem in check” (Coreil, 2010, p. 8). Keeping this definition in mind, I would say that having BMI calculations early in age could thwart off this condition. I would most likely choose the active...