Medical School Curriculum

My short-term goals are to enhance my knowledge of medical nutrition therapy, to gain experiences in all aspects of the dietetic field especially in clinical nutrition setting, and to become an RD. My long-term career goals are to become Certified Diabetes Educator, to engage and serve in community nutrition, and to promote wellness and preventive health care for socio-economically and culturally fragile populations. The U.S. population has become increasingly diverse in ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, I believe that providing patient-centered education with respect on the differences of cultural, religious, and dietary practices are the keys to becoming a successful educator in nutrition counseling and education.

It is no secret that childhood obesity is a problem in America. With children having to take physical education courses in school, it combats obesity in a way that they may not get at home. “Children and adolescents who are obese are likely to be obese as adults and are therefore more at risk for adult health problems such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, several types of cancer, and osteoarthritis. One study showed that children who became obese as early as age 2 were more likely to be obese as adults” (Childhood Obesity Facts). Teaching children about the importance of a healthy lifestyle at a young age can help them be less at risk for diseases

There are many ways a teacher could assist in addressing obesity and here are three ways that could make a

Explain to individuals about the importance of a healthy diet and encourage and support them to choose healthy options and alternatives.

The goal of this program was to prevent Type 2 Diabetes as well as reduce childhood obesity and the among Kahnawake residents. The project developed a health education curriculum for children, strengthened the school’s nutrition policy to create supportive environments for healthy eating in the school, and provided a program of classroom and school activities to promote healthy lifestyles for parents, teachers, and children throughout the school year. To follow up and support what the children learned in class, a year-long program of community activities that included walking clubs, cooking courses and community gardens was initiated (Willows, Hanley, & Delormier,

The health of students should be considered one of the most important issues in education. However, as of 2012, the Center for Disease Control calculated that over one third of children and adolescents were either overweight or obese. Not only does obesity cause physical health problems, but can also affect the academic performance of students. Over the past few years, Americans have been working together to find solutions for this problem.

I enjoyed reading your post as your public health issue and strategies are similar to my topic. My focus was on the increased incidence of heart disease in African-American women. Obesity is one of the major risk factors for heart disease. Considering the high rate of overweight or obesity in children of the African-American community, they are prone to develop cardiovascular disease at a very young age. It is even more alarming to find out that African-American adolescent girls of 12-19 years of age have the highest prevalence of obesity of any group by gender, race, or ethnicity.1 I believe that children can change their attitudes towards eating healthy food if they are encouraged to do so both at home and school. Schools are an important part of a growing child’s life. Training children to eat healthy food during childhood and adolescence is important for their growth and development. This in turn reduces the risk of health problems such as obesity, heart disease, osteoporosis, iron deficiency anemia, dental caries, diabetes and high cholesterol.2 Research also suggests that eating a healthy breakfast

4. Child Obesity: we help families adopt healthy life styles through training towards the adoption of a balanced diet and the incorporation of physical activity. We help schools rethink their approach to feeding students.

The proposed intervention to help combat childhood obesity in low-income families will be an interactive nutrition education program for both the children and their families. This program will be needed in rural, low income areas, that otherwise would not have access to this information. Patient education is of the utmost importance when combatting the development of chronic illnesses, especially one as prevalent as obesity is the United States. A health improvement plan must include realistic interventions that are appropriate for the target population.

Ralph Sacco, president of the American Heart Association and professor of neurology @ University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, “If we don’t get our middle school children physically active as early as possible, we run the risk of more obesity and more bad habits developing as we age.” (No More PE in Fla Middle School 7) Dr. Jay Jansen a Sport Medicine Doctor at Blue Ridge Bone & Joint believes, “childhood obesity is a relatively substantial problem in our society. Dr. Jansen believes about 17 or 20% of children are sometimes considered obese this could be from multiple factors such as: lack of physical activity, social issues at home, lots of TV, electronic type devices and dietary issues. One of the big concerns with childhood obesity is that it leads to adult obesity, which is clearly associated with multiple health risks. This includes heart disease, diabetes, and certain types of cancers as well as lower extremity arthritic and degenerative problems.” That is why learning about what is needed to care for your health should be a required course of study. Schools should realize both academic and physical education are important to educating children. Children’s physical and mental well-being goes hand in hand. Requiring physical education as a mandatory course of study should not cause children increase difficulty when it comes to schedules. Kids have a certain amount of standardized courses which should include physical education and they

The issue of obesity has been ongoing in the American society for over a decade and there is much that can be done to fix it. As the great businessman Richard Attias said, “Obesity is a problem that nearly every nation in the world is facing, but there is much that we can do to fix it” (Attais). With very little progress being made to stop or slow it down in the present time, the focus should be shifted towards the future. America’s younger generation should be taught about health, nutrition and preventing major weight gain. Adding lessons and classes to the American public school system that pertain to these subjects would greatly benefit our society in the future. Educating students about nutrition and physical activities will make them more aware about their health and staying healthy. This will cause students to be more proactive by eating healthier and exercising frequently. As a result, there will be a decrease in obesity in our society as the younger generation grows up.

Childhood obesity is more than a major issue in the United States: it is an epidemic. The number of overweight and obese children in America has increased at an alarming rate over the past years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the past 30 years [1]. American Heart Association stated, “Today one in three American kids and teens are overweight or obese; nearly triple the rate in 1963” [5]. Unfortunately, this affects our children physically, mentally, and long-term.

Upon reviewing the community vitality data I came to the conclusion that the health problem that a health education program would be most appropriate to address would be childhood nutritional health and fitness. I came to this conclusion after careful data analysis. Of the county’s adults (18+) 77% ate less than five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, this percentage is so high likely because of attitudes and habits these adults picked up when they were children. The second largest age demographic in the county is children aged 10 to 17 are overweight, six percent more than the state average, 88% of children age 10 to 17 are not meeting daily targets for fruit and vegetable consumption and 30% age 10 to 17 watch 3 or

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the number of obese children ages 6-19 have tripled to 16% over the last twelve years. That is an alarming figure. One of the main causes is lack of physical activity. This may seem like an obvious cause, but it seems to be the one our youth have the most problems with. Physical education is being

What an awesome question and I am glad you asked me that!!!! We just had this same issue at my job over the new implementation of a medical curriculum and we had some resistance from teachers refusing to implement it because they felt they would have a high failure rate of students. So, there could be many barriers that may be preventing this stakeholder from making a good decision. According to Cole (2008), several factors can affect the way a person makes a decision. These barriers are attitudes and beliefs, expectations, lack of understanding cultural differences, and institutional practices that prevent a stakeholder in making a poor decision about a student education (p. 20). As in any good decision-making process, I would get the fact first because this could just be a disagreement between two colleagues about their techniques. For this issue, I would use the open decision-making approach. This model has been known to handle a situation like this, and it is the best method to use when making a decision in an organization about people in such a quick amount or time. This model help gets buy-in from the people in the organization because they believe they are making the decision. The steps to this mode are "collect input widely, facilitate a consensus, announce the decision clearly, and do not reconsider the decision unless there is significant new information" (Stanford University, 2008). In the Navy when you become a senior enlisted leader you attend a