Pubh6001 Health Policy: Policies Related Assessment Answer

n different programs and policies so that people are aware about the side effects of sugar.

The Government of Australia has been working on different campaigns, healthy eating policies and different initiatives related to sugars to prevent obesity. Obesity not only affects the health of a person but it also affects the communities. The activities of Government at different level of national and under jurisdiction tries to emphasize on reducing the intake of beverages with added sugars. Some examples are limiting the use of foods containing sugars in canteens in schools and colleges along with promotional messages in health by marketing. Different Non-Government Organisations focus on bringing awareness among people by conducting awareness programs. Even some food industries provides information about the sugar content in the given product.

Sugar is mostly consumed in drinks that contains added sugars and it leads to obesity. The rate of obesity has increased from one tenth in early 1980s to one fourth at present. Obesity among children has increased from less than 2% in 1980s to about 7% in present. According to reports (Duckett & Wiltshire, 2016), a tax on drinks containing sugar can recover the cost of obesity for a community, which could be about A $ 5.3 billion. The total cost for obesity annually is estimated to be A $ 8.6 billion which includes about A $ 3.8 billion in direct cost for treatment and about A $ 4.8 billion in indirect cost for treatment.

 The name of the policy was “Obesity Policy Coalition” which was proposed to the Australian Government. The major stakeholders in this policy were the patients, employers of different companies who suffer from obesity, different insurance companies, pharmaceutical and health care firms, physicians and the government.

In order to tackle obesity, the Government of Australia had introduced several plans by monitoring rate of obesity and overweight and increase in education among communities and formation of a strategy related to healthy canteen. Limiting the use of foods containing sugars in canteens in schools and colleges along with promotional messages in health was one of the major achievements. The Australian Capital Territory had introduced “Zero Growth – Healthy Weight Action Plan” in 2013, to set out different priorities, responsibilities and goals in order to improve health within the Territory. Local governments in Australia are also focusing on prevention of obesity and health promotion programs. Even the Victorian municipalities are creating healthy drinks by building different strategies to use water and reduce consumption of drinks containing sugar. This plan created by the Victorian municipalities following the guidelines of Victorian Government’s Healthy Choices was termed as “the Victorian Public Health and Wellbeing Plan”.

World Health Organization’s Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity Report had provided a model with different approaches in strategy, strategic objectives and different kinds of  policy options. The most suited interventions adopted from the policy were chosen. The first intervention was adoption an obesity prevention strategy whole of government. For children, reducing the exposure to marketing through advertisements for beverages and unhealthy foods on television as well as in other platforms and allowing children to play and promoting sports sponsorship. Improving the star rated system in health and also checking the methods of packaging of food. Providing funds for educating children, adults and community about how to prevent obesity and follow an improved healthy diet. Committed to funding for this ongoing policy and conducting nutritional survey in every 5 to 10 years. To establish targets for the national population and check the dietary intake in different food categories and to intervene to reduce the use of drinks containing sugars by imposing tax on them.

The Obesity Policy Coalition (OPC) is a coalition between the Cancer Council Victoria, Diabetes Victoria and the Global Obesity Centre at Deakin University, a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention. The Obesity Policy Coalition advocates for evidence-based policy and regulatory change to address overweight, obesity and unhealthy diets in Australia, particularly among children.

This policy has been adopted by many people across Australia and the government has been also supporting this policy. The main aim of this policy is to reduce obesity as less as it can be done.  The government as well as different local municipalities and territories have observed and found the severity of obesity and its effects among people and community. Imposing taxes in drinks containing sugar and reducing the price of healthy drinks was a very good initiative by the government. This could help in people choosing health drinks over drinks containing sugars. Educating people and awareness camps are very important so that people could get an idea about the side effects of sugar and the problems faced by people suffering from obesity. Educating children is the most important initiative taken as children are not aware about healthy and unhealthy foods. Overall this policy has been moving forward smoothly and benefitting a lot of people around Australia. The government of Australia has recently shared this initiative among people from non-indigenous people (people from Torres Strait and Aboriginal islands). The government of Australia has been following the guidelines of World Health Organization and this ten year policy has been going according to plan. There is only one problem and that is even though there is decrease in sale of sugary drinks but still some people are still buying sugary drinks with high costs than healthy drinks. The Australian Government must focus on these scenarios and take necessary steps.

References

Duckett, S., Swerissen, H., & Wiltshire, T. A sugary drinks tax: recovering the community costs of obesity. 2016. Grattan Institute. Victoria, Australia.

Hayes, A. J., Lung, T. W. C., Bauman, A., & Howard, K. (2017). Modelling obesity trends in Australia: unravelling the past and predicting the future. International journal of obesity, 41(1), 178.