Question
Health Assessment of Children's Weight
Body measurements can provide a general picture of whether a child is receiving adequate nutrition or is at risk for health issues. These data, however, are just one aspect to be considered. Lifestyle, family history, and culture”among other factors are also relevant. That said, gathering and communicating this information can be a delicate process.
For this Discussion, you will consider examples of children with various weight issues. You will explore how you could effectively gather information and encourage parents and caregivers to be proactive about their children health and weight.
To prepare:
Consider the following examples of pediatric patients and their families:
Overweight 5-year-old boy with overweight parents
Slightly overweight 10-year-old girl with parents of normal weight
5-year-old girl of normal weight with obese parents
Slightly underweight 8-year-old boy with parents of normal weight
Severely underweight 12-year-old girl with underweight parents
Select one of the examples on which to focus for this Discussion. What health issues and risks may be relevant to the child you selected?
Based on the risks you identified, consider what further information you would need to gain a full understanding of the child's health. Think about how you could gather this information in a sensitive fashion.
Consider how you could encourage parents or caregivers to be proactive toward the child's health.
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| Subject | Nursing | Pages | 2 | Style | APA |
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Answer
The pediatric health care providers are tasked with the responsibility of monitoring the growth and development of a child (Ball, Bindler, Cowen, 2013). To do this, the pediatric health care providers rely on the variation from expected growth patterns as the first indicator of an undiagnosed disease, illness or genetic disorder or poor nutrition (Ball, Bindler, Cowen, 2013). This paper seeks to explore the health issues and risks relevant to a 5-year overweight boy with overweight parents.
The overweight boy is at risk of developing health problems during childhood because of his weight. For instance, the boy is at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, fatty liver disease, gallstones, high cholesterol levels, and risk factors for heart disease (Knight, 2011). Based on these risks, I would need further information about the family medical history of the boy so as to gain a full understanding of the child's health. For instance, since the boy's parents are also overweight, I would need to have more information about their medical and the medical history of their parents regarding type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, fatty liver disease, gallstones, high cholesterol levels, and risk factors for heart disease. This information can be obtained from the boy’s parents through a sensitive fashion involving questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Consequently, I would use questionnaires to collect this information from the parents and later organize a semi-structured interview with the parents to provide further insight on the information collected through the questionnaires.
Parents and caregivers should be proactive towards the child's health. To encourage this, I would teach the parents and caregivers to be models to their children by giving them ideas on how they can appreciate their bodies and their functions (Golley, Hendrie, Slater, Corsini, 2011).
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References
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Ball, J. W., Bindler, R. C., & Cowen, K. (2013). Child health nursing. Prentice Hall.
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