Indigenous Communities in Australia

Indigenous Communities in Australia

Promoting Healthy Eating and Exercise among Indigenous Communities in Australia

Instructions:

MINIMUM 1500 (+10%) WORDS. IN EXCESS OF 1650 WORDS, ESSAY WILL NOT BE MARKED.
ESSAY WORD COUNT MUST INCLUDE (APA) IN-TEXT CITATION

TASK
Identify a community-directed nutrition intervention or program aimed at improving the food choices of Australian Indigenous people that has been successful or unsuccessfully implemented. This program can be in an urban or rural setting. Draw on the perceptions and attitudes outlined in the Brimblecombe, J et al (2014) ‘Factors
Influencing Food Choice in an Australian Aboriginal Community’, Qualitative Health
Research; 24(3):387-400 article to understand the ‘enablers’ and ‘barriers’ to healthy
food choices among Australian Aboriginals living in remote communities as a starting
point.

In your essay you are required to identify the elements from a sociological perspective
that contributed to the program’s success or failure. Additionally, you are required to
select another nutrition program or intervention that has been implemented in an
international setting to strengthen your observations and argument. Compare and
contrast the international intervention elements from a sociological perspective to the
local program.
The assignment should be structured as an essay with an introduction, main body and
conclusion.

Solution

Promoting Healthy Eating and Exercise among Indigenous Communities in Australia

Indigenous Communities in Australia

Introduction

There is a considerable gap in the health between the indigenous and the non-indigenous Australians. The indigenous Australians who live in remote communities receive the largest portion of the gap. The key contributor to the health disparity and disease is the inadequate or poor nutrition for the indigenous Australians. Multiple community-directed nutrition interventions and programs have been either successfully or unsuccessfully implemented in the indigenous regions to improve the food choices of the Australian indigenous people who live in remote communities. With reference to the state-funded program for health promotion that was conducted in the Koori community, Northern Victoria, this essay analyses some of the sociological elements determining success in the programs.

Promoting Healthy Eating and Exercise among Indigenous Communities in Australia

The Koori community is located in the Goulburn-Murray Region of Northern Victoria, which is in South Eastern Australia. The program was implemented in an attempt to promote healthy nutrition and physical activity. Collaboration with the indigenous people was a key principle in the program. The Koori community makes up the largest population of Aboriginals in Victoria and is located outside of Melbourne, the state’s capital. In 2001 it had a population of 6000 according to the Department of Rural Health. The community comprises of members from all parts of Australia, who are all residents on the Yorta Yorta Bangerang traditional lands (Reilly, Doyle & Rowley, 2007).

The entire population is spread out in a wide area covering an aboriginal township and three regional centres suggesting the region is relatively wealthy. However it experiences similar burdens of ill health and socio-economic disadvantage just like the aboriginal communities living in areas that are less well-resourced (Henryks & Brimblecombe, 2016).

To influence the individual’s habit, it is important the Healthy Lifestyles Program was initiated. The program was geared towards achieving fitness and nutrition for the entire community. The PAR was developed such that the community members are able to assume control in the research process and local knowledge is highly valued. When the locals know that their views and perspectives are respected, they learn to identify with the program and work towards its success (Reilly, Doyle & Rowley, 2007).

Younger community members have been discovered to consume too much unhealthy foods including sweetened beverages. Too much sugar is unhealthy and can lead to serious medical conditions. The 2006 Hungry for Victory program was started up targeting footballers aged 17 or under 14. The young people were encouraged to participate in nutrition workshops through the breakfast and mentoring programs. The programs were effective in helping reduce the gap in healthy food consumption between even the aboriginal adults and teenagers. The program failed partially due to the delay in the participation of the netballers, which was contributed to by changes in the competitions of netball and issues with management owing to the responsibilities and demands that women were already expected to shoulder (Reilly, Doyle & Rowley, 2007).

Education about nutrition is a very important milestone in achieving healthy eating among the Australian Aboriginals (Brimblecombe, Maypilama, Colles, Scarlett, Dhurrkay, Ritchie & O’Dea, 2014). At least 30 participants who were all footballers participated in the program. The nutrition education emphasized to all the participants the need for tailoring their eating habits so that they can maximize performance in the football field (Reilly, Doyle & Rowley, 2007).

Through the healthy breakfast and the mentoring program, older players were able to pass the knowledge on to the younger players through maintaining contact with them and bringing them along to have the healthy breakfast. This was very effective in promoting positive eating and nutritional habits. The few participants benefited from the program and have the concept hopefully to pass on to the next generation of footballers (Reilly, Doyle & Rowley, 2007).

The Nutrition and Physical Activity Guidelines Focus Groups were fundamental in identifying the key issues behind the reluctance of community members to adopt healthy eating styles. The community members who participated in the focus groups revealed that they already knew about what to eat and not to eat. However, due to the tight budget, it was not easy to consume more vegetables and fruits while reducing the amount of fat they took in per day. Other factors they stated include full schedule and busy household (Henryks & Brimblecombe, 2016).

Finances are very important in making food choices. People may end up eating poor foods because they cannot afford the more expensive healthier ones (Brimblecombe, Maypilama, Colles, Scarlett, Dhurrkay, Ritchie & O’Dea, 2014). A tight budget can hinder one from making healthy food choices. The access to such healthy foods may also not be readily available. This may result from the transport and durability of the foodstuff. Stocking healthy foods that are highly perishable like tomatoes. Family commitments constitute a busy lifestyle that may hinder one from considering healthy eating and exercise, even though the participants understood that eating healthily and exercising could help in improving the health of the indigenous communities of Australia (Henryks & Brimblecombe, 2016).

The program also identified the household size as a barrier to the attainment of proper nutrition. There are mixed preferences within the household that may be hard to deal with when making food choices. Making the choice may then become a dilemma and the food chosen may be the one favoured by many of the household members, even if it is not a healthy one (Reilly, Doyle & Rowley, 2007).

Some other participants indicated that the availability of information about nutrition can be promoted by developing a Koori cookbook, developing a community garden and producing an educational video that makes use of local talent. The cookbook and the video should then be used in educating children in schools (Reilly, Doyle & Rowley, 2007).

Another barrier to eating well that was identified by the program was the presence of conflicting nutritional knowledge (Brimblecombe, Maypilama, Colles, Scarlett, Dhurrkay, Ritchie & O’Dea, 2014). Solutions were sought by the program through cooperating with an existing community fitness program, the Healthy Lifestyles Program. The program provided education to women and helped them in learning about nutritional health, being careful not to disrupt the social nature of the group. In four weeks, the participants were able to raise some concerns which were addressed by the program including barriers to exercising and healthy foods access. The activities that were undertaken include using a pedometer during walking, collection of bush tucker and crafts. Discussions were also held on topics that were chosen by the women. The women who had participated in the program spread the news to other women who attended the program after them (Reilly, Doyle & Rowley, 2007).

All the activities were chosen and designed by the community members so that they could fit in the specific local context. This is a very important step as it helps in making the participants to feel that the program is relevant to their situations. It is also possible to see the problem from the perspective of the locals instead of trying to identify the issues through surveys. Surveys are limited as they may have bias or the acquired data may not be representative of the whole population (Henryks & Brimblecombe, 2016).

The project’s effectiveness in a formal manner could not be established due to the lack of systematic evaluation processes. Any program that has been geared towards improving the health of the Aboriginals often meets the challenge of systematic evaluation. There is a need to emphasize more on evaluation. The evaluation should be executed by use of means acceptable to participants. Evaluation should be an integral part of designing the project. Since the collection of data on the effectiveness of the program using questionnaires was plagued by many challenges, the program facilitators became less interested in the pursuit of the activity and ultimately abandoned it.  It was necessary to devise a new method of collecting feedback. Creating opportunities for dialogue at social gatherings was a brilliant idea and it worked very effectively (Reilly, Doyle & Rowley, 2007).

International healthy food programs have been just as effective as the Koori community project. For instance, the Healthy Incentives Pilot, a large scale US-based project enrols low-income households in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The program ensures that each enrolled household receives fruit and vegetable subsidies. The participants were discovered to consume more than a quarter times more fruit and vegetables, which was more than the non-participants. The access to nutritious food was highly increased by the Healthy Incentives Pilot ensuring that all the participants gained easy access to fruits and vegetable. Unlike the Koori community project, the US-based program has elaborate methods of collecting data on the feedback and evaluating the effectiveness of its activities, which guarantees its success (Henryks & Brimblecombe, 2016). The program also receives a limitless amount of funding for all of its activities thereby helping it to achieve all of its goals. The Koori community project, on the other hand, received limited funding from the Australian government and could not meet some of its goals (Reilly, Doyle & Rowley, 2007).

Conclusion

Healthy eating is a very important determinant of community health especially in indigenous communities. Programs like the Koori community-driven project and the US-based Healthy Incentives Pilot are some of the incentives that have been put in place to help in improving the health of Indigenous Australians who have been faced with serious health conditions including obesity and high blood pressure. Promoting healthy eating and body exercises have been proven to help in dealing with the various health issues. The success of such programs depends on the possibility of carrying out evaluations and collecting data to determine effectiveness and identify areas that need addressing.

References

Brimblecombe, J., Maypilama, E., Colles, S., Scarlett, M., Dhurrkay, J.G., Ritchie, J & O’Dea, K. (2014). Factors Influencing Food Choice in an Australian Aboriginal Community. Qualitative Health Research; 24(3):387-400

Henryks, J. & Brimblecombe, J. (2016). Mapping Point-of-Purchase Influencers of Food Choice in Australian Remote Indigenous Communities: A Review of the Literature. SAGE Open.

Reilly, R., Doyle, J. & Rowley, K. (2007). Koori community-directed health promotion in the Goulburn Valley. The Australian Community Psychologist, 19(1):39-46