Introduction

Nowadays, with the development of global economy, human life has experienced incredible changes and takes the improvement in people’s standard of living. People initially ignore dietary habits and lifestyles lead to over nutrition because of advanced living standard which causes the emergence of obesity. Ostman, Britton and Jonsson (2004) claims that the increasing levels of obesity in recent decades is related to the changes in standard of living, diet habits, and physical activity rather than be completely attributed to genetic factors. While genetic factors are influential this project will focus on the lifestyle factors influencing obesity. Obesity is based on body mass index (BMI). The measurement of BMI is associated with body height and weight. The formula confirms the relationship:

           = BMI (Ostman et al., 2004, p. 2)

It interprets BMI equal to weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. Once BMI is equal or greater than 30 and between 25 and 30, it will be defined as obesity and overweight respectively (Ostman et al., 2004, p. 2).

According to statistics formOstman et al. (2004, p. 1), in the past decades, the general trend in the population of obesity is upward dramatically, especially in European countries and North America. Overall, the USA has the highest percentage over 20%, followed by England, Germany and Poland exceeds 15% and Sweden at around 12%.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the understanding of obesity amongst international students at Liverpool International College (LIC) and through data collection to analysis the lifestyle factors which influence obesity. The effects of obesity on health will be considered. It is anticipated that these findings will help students get more knowledge about obesity andrealisehow to keep healthy. Research into obesity must be conducted sensitively. There may be sensitive questions so that it is hard to investigate in students, especially questionnaire.

The project will provide critical literature review to compare and contrast different ideas and make synthesis, then research methods will be described. After this, it will evaluate the findings and finally a discussion of the conclusions and any limitations will be identified along with future areas of research.

 Literature review

Obesity as a major health problem has engendered public attention in the UK and many other countries in the world because of its increasing popularity. In the patients of obesity, the group of children and young people is the most concerned. The results of the research found that obesity of childhood will result in health-related problems in adulthood (Snetselaar, 2007). According to Lobstein, Baur and Uauy (2004), there are 10 % of adolescent being overweight in the world, which takes higher risks to get chronic disease, such as diabetes and heart disease. Obesity has brought a series of negative effects on people’s living, also the lifestyle factors are complex. Therefore, it is incentive why an issue is worthwhile to investigate.#p#分頁標題#e#

The various features of dietary habits and physical activity can easily be indicated to as mainly causal lifestyle factors of obesity by traditional common sense. Firstly, humans usually are unaware of diet habits and lack of self-control to consume fast foods instead of appropriate dinner. According to Ostman et al. (2004, p. 20), because people prefer different kinds of fatty food that is rich in taste substances, the ratio of fat get higher in the diet, occupying around 40% of energy intake.

These are also supported by Lobstein et al. (2004). The research is in the group of children and adolescents. The prevalence of obesity is related to energy intake containing high levels of fat or consumes snack food more frequent and irregular beside meals. Following Snetselaar (2007, p. 18) provides an item of statistical data to support:

“the percentage of each age group of children who snack between meals increased from 77% to 91%, and the average number of snacks per day increased by 24%, with the average daily calorie intake from snacking increasing by 30%”(Snetselaar 2007, p. 18).

Moreover, the research toward developing countries illustrate that with the globalization of mess media, exotic victuals invade local food culture and disturb the entirely food production and consumption which include excessive fats and hyper-calorieindirectly can be involved in the increasing of obesity, like western fast food (Mela, 2005).

Secondly, they get large energy intake without exercise and energy can not be utilized through physical activity result in the imbalance of income and consumption (Ostman et al., 2004; Lobstein et al., 2004). Nevertheless, Mela (2005) refers an extraordinary factor is that the development of technology make mechanical work instead of manual work in almost every aspects of this world so that people reduce energy expenditure and get less effort in their work. For example, farmers do not need to do the farming work by hand; drivers do their work without move.

Obesity-induced impacts are immense for human beings, which is based on quality of life, physical health, and economic costs. Obesity patients endure inconvenient action and take large psychological pressure to suffer different public opinion from society and people’s exceptive eyes. Lobstein et al. (2004) claims that obesity brings depression or anxiety states for people and generates some negative personality, especially lazy, sloppy and stupid, and make them loss self-esteem. There is evidence that obese women in America take more inferior educational achievement, lower salary, higher rates of indigence and less possibility of marriage than thin women, and obese youths get greater prejudice in their life and academic environment。

Following Ostman et al. (2004) argues that obese people may encounter bias attitude in the work and get lower money than others, their psychological pressure contributed by people’s comments which lead to depressive reactions. These reactions focus on “high alcohol consumption, smoking, depression and anxiety” (Ostman et al., 2004, p. 26).#p#分頁標題#e#

The above reactions can be as contributors to imperil people’s life.Ostman et al. (2004); Lobstein et al. (2004) claims that obesity can make higher mortality because it creates a series of complex diseases, for instance, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, myocardial infarction, asthma and some cancers. According toLobsteinet al. (2004, p.23), around 33% and 5% of obesity had symptoms and severe obstructive sleep apnea respectively.

Furthermore, obesity also has extensive effects on economic aspect for health care. Lobstein et al. (2004, p. 30) argues that the costs of obesity are considerable burden for health care system, according to statistics, 2%-7% of entire health care costs are used in obesity in some developed countries. This condition is supported by Ostman et al. (2004, p. 3). In addition, there are the indirect costs due to obesity are associated with the lost productivity of absent work and the payment of disability pensions arising from early retirement (Ostman et al., 2004; Lobstein et al., 2004).

Tosummarise, owing to people disregard living habits and regular diet, the number of obesity had a rapid increase in these recent years, thus it not only generates numerous inconvenience and health problems for people, but also takes heavy economic burden for the country.This project will look at a group of international students and compare their understanding of the lifestyle factors influencing obesity and conclude the effects on health aspects.

 Methodology

In order to receive the understanding of international students at LIC about the lifestyle factors and effects of obesity, some research methods which were used for data collection were considered. In this research, the use of questionnaire was the most reasonable. Because obesity involves some sensitive problems, the questionnaire would attempt to avoid some sensitive questions to get the results indirectly.

 

The survey was planed from 20th July to 24th July. The questionnaire was torealisethe details about obesity from 30 international students in LIC, which consist of 15 questions. These questions mainly focus on the investigation of lifestyle factors and effects of obesity. Some sensitive questions were attempted to avoid, examples as following:

   Do you enjoy do some exercises (closed question)?

Please rank your favorite food (order of priority)?

How many hours do you sleep per day (open question)?

What kinds of drink do you like (multiple choice)?

However, the questions about the effects on health aspects were difficult to avoid sensitive problem. This is the limitation of investigation need to treat sensitively.

After finished the survey of questionnaire, the student understanding would be compared and contrasted and the results would beanalysed.

 

Reference#p#分頁標題#e#

Ostam, J., Britton, M. and Jonsson, E. (2004). Treating and Preventing Obesity. Darmstadt: WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

 

Lobstein, T., Baur, L. and Uauy, R. (2004). Obesity in children and young people: a crisis in public health. Obesity Reviews. 5 (1), 4-85.

 

Snetselaar, L. (2007). Nutritional Counseling for Lifestyle Change. New York: CRC Press.