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Community readiness for adolescents’ overweight and obesity prevention is low in urban South Africa: a case study

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posted on 2016-09-09, 14:49 authored by Rebecca PradeillesRebecca Pradeilles, Emily RoushamEmily Rousham, Shane A. Norris, Joanna M. Kesten, Paula GriffithsPaula Griffiths
Background South Africa is undergoing epidemiological and nutrition transitions with associated increases in the incidence of overweight, obesity and diet-related chronic diseases. With the emergence of the nutrition transition in South Africa, there is an urgent need for interventions to prevent overweight and obesity in children and adolescents as risk factors for chronic diseases in adolescence may track throughout later life. This research explored the potential for faith-based organisations (FBOs) to be used as community organisations for overweight and obesity prevention interventions in adolescents by assessing the readiness of religious leaders to engage in such interventions. Methods Surveys and focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with 51 religious leaders in Johannesburg and Soweto. The Community Readiness Model (CRM) survey was chosen to determine the stage of readiness of this community regarding overweight and obesity prevention. Six different dimensions were assessed in the CRM (community efforts, knowledge of efforts, leadership, community climate, knowledge of the issue, resources). The surveys were scored according to the CRM protocol. The survey data were supplemented with findings from FGDs. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the FGDs. Results The mean community readiness score was 2.57 ± 0.76 which equates with the “denial/resistance stage”. The mean readiness score for resources was the highest of all the dimensions (3.77 ± 0.28), followed by knowledge of the issue (3.20 ± 0.51). The lowest score was seen for community knowledge of efforts (1.77 ± 1.50), followed by community climate (2.00 ± 0.64). FGDs helped interpret the CRM scores. FGDs showed that religious leaders were enthusiastic and recognised that their role was not limited solely to spiritual guidance and mentoring, but also to physical well-being. Conclusions Religious leaders recognised that they act as role models within the community and thus have a role to play in improving adolescent health. They have some knowledge about the overweight/obesity issue and some of the resources could be made available to support overweight/obesity prevention-related initiatives. However, the low community knowledge of efforts and the negative prevailing attitude of the community towards overweight and obesity highlight the need to increase awareness of this issue prior to implementing initiatives on overweight and obesity prevention.

Funding

R.P. was supported by the Gilchrist Educational Trust, the Royal Anthropological Institute and the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences from Loughborough University. P.L.G. was supported by a British Academy mid-career fellowship (reference number MD120048). S.A.N. was supported by the MRC/ DfID African Research Leader Scheme. J.K. is partly funded by CLAHRC West at University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust and NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Evaluation of Interventions at University of Bristol in partnership with Public Health England.

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

BMC Public Health

Volume

16

Issue

1

Citation

PRADEILLES, R. ... et al, 2016. Community readiness for adolescents’ overweight and obesity prevention is low in urban South Africa: a case study. BMC Public Health, 16 (1), article 763.

Publisher

BioMed Central / © The Authors

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/

Acceptance date

2016-08-05

Publication date

2016

Notes

This is an open access article published by BioMed Central and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

eISSN

1471-2458

Language

  • en

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