Critical Attributes to Understand When Reading Our Blog

The critical attributes of our current event are understanding what it means to be obese, as well as understanding the impact of obesity on one's health. Obesity by definition, means an individual who has a Body Mass Index of 30 or higher. In simpler terms, it means someone who has an unhealthy degree of body fat. The difference between being overweight and being obese is that someone can be overweight because they have a higher percentage of body muscle, where as obesity, focuses primarily on the content of body fat. Understanding the difference between being overweight and being obese is another critical attribute. In addition, an individual must understand the impacts that obesity can have on their health.

Being obese means that their is a higher percentage of body fat within your body. Additional fat tissue needs oxygen within your body to live, which requires the blood vessels to circulate more blood. This increases the workload of the heart and applies increased pressure on the artery walls, leading to high blood pressure. This increased heart rate can seriously reduce the bodys ability to transport blood within the body. Obesity also increases the chances of having diabetes. Obesity can cause a resistance to insulin resulting in higher blood sugar, impacting the likelihood of developing diabetes. The chance of developing coronary heart disease is also higher due to the buildup of fat deposits in the arteries. This also leads to a higher probability of blood clots and stroke. Obesity also can lead to joint problems due to the amount of stress placed on the knees.
http://stanfordhospital.org/clinicsmedServices/COE/surgicalServices/generalSurgery/bariatricsurgery/obesity/effects.html
  
It is also important to observe the increasing prevalence as obesity. As mentioned in our first blog, around thirty percent or more of the population in each state is obese. This is important to recognize because we will encounter this issue as teachers. Knowing the detrimental health effects, and understanding the nature of this epidemic is vital. Many Americans prize America to be a country of opportunity, and these opportunities will be limited if the people within this country are living unhealthy life styles.

The informational knowledge would be knowing what obesity is, understanding the health effects listed above, being educated on the current events surrounding the issue, and being aware of the prevalence as well severity of obesity in schools. The procedural knowledge would be knowing what types of behaviors lead to obesity, and what behaviors can help prevent it.

How we would break this concept up to teach others as they read our blog, is by providing them with information educating them on the nature of obesity and its prevalence. Then we would progress to educate individiduals on the side effects obesity can have on individuals health. In order to emphasize the prevalence of the issue we would provide recent articles surrounding our topic. We also will include information on what is being done within our country in addressing the issue. Then in attempts to educate people on prevention practices we will provide resources that individuals can use to help prevent obesity, as well as intervention services for those suffering from the epidemic.

Places that we will probably try to contact in attempts to gaining resources would be the nurse's from our field placements, a children's pediatric office, and possible the children's hospital. We believe that these would be great places to start contacting in attempts to fill our service learning binder.