Obesity And Its Effects On The Field Of Public Health

Problem Statement: Diabetes Management brings substantial financial and social burden through its short and long term effects on individuals’ life. According to American Diabetes Association, diabetes has affected 29.1 million Americans in 2012, with $176 billion direct medical costs (American Diabetes Association, 2014). Such increasing trends in incidences of diabetes and its associated comorbidities has raised many concerns on quality of health care and has placed this disease as the main target for behavioral lifestyle interventions and diabetes management programs in the field of public health. Brief Literature Review: The prevalence of diabetes has increased exponentially in the past few decades. It is estimated that each year,†¦show more content†¦It is therefore not a surprise that the current guidelines for treatment of diabetes has placed emphasis on lifestyle counseling, self-management education, and diabetes control support as the key components for improving clinical outcomes and quality of life in a cost effective manner (American Diabetes Association, 2015). Moreover, these guidelines underline the fundamentals of informed decision-making, self-efficacy, and active collaboration between healthcare providers and patients. Highly structured educational programs and intensive behavioral interventions are crucial in empowering patients to self-manage their metabolic panels, sustain healthy lifestyles, and adhere to medications (Cauch-Dudek et al., 2013). Furthermore, research has shown that weight loss obtained by utilization of these programs alone have led to reduction in medication use, lowered risk of cardiovascular disease, and successfully recuperated diabetes control (Delahanty et al., 2008; Gregg et al., 2012; Wadden et al., 2007). However, other studies have indicated that several barriers such as lack of awareness and misapprehension about the programs have made these educational and diabetes management programs to become significantly underused (Graziani et al., 1999; Forjuoh et al., 2011).