Introduction
Educating and training patients, caregivers, families, and communities is an indispensable activity of the nursing profession. Teaching involves informing about preventive practices and healthy lifestyles, instructing on taking drugs and self-care, and disseminating other relevant and useful data promoting persons’ well-being. In particular, to teach patients, nurses typically use various educational materials such as visuals, pamphlets, brochures, or handouts, issued by healthcare entities and agencies. However, medical professionals should ensure that the content on these papers is clear, readable, appropriate, and comprehensible for the target audience to achieve optimal results. This paper aims at examining a brochure titled “Adult Obesity” concerning its authenticity, breadth, consistency, and readability.
The Project Description
The present health promotion presentation, titled Towards health: Overcome Obesity Together, is intended for the community named Broward county. The project focus on the Healthy People 2020 (HP2020) objective named NWS-03: reduce the proportion of adults with obesity. Specifically, the HP2030’s target is to decrease 38.6 percent of adults with obesity to 36.0 percent by 2030 (“Reduce the proportion,” n.d.).
The presentation will be provided via Zoom at 11:00 in accordance with the local time on Saturday, August 7th, for adults aged 21 and older, engaging people of both sexes and all races. In this project, the central aim will be to decrease the rate of overweight and obese individuals by 1 percent over the following five years. The regional percentage of obese people will fall due to the amplified public awareness of obesity’s hazards and harms and sufficient education on their health.
Authenticity
“Adult Obesity” is a brochure published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as one of the CDC Vital Signs reports launched in 2010. The content of the pamphlet is related to the organization’s sectors, such as the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Nutrition, and Physical Activity and Obesity. The CDC is the US national healthcare agency under the Department of Health and Human Services, which indicates the brochure’s high reliability.
Since the paper was issued on August 3, 2010, it does not entirely mirror the current situation but contains recent and relevant data, including statistics and facts, that can still be applied for educational purposes. Considering the provided information, the leaflet is specifically designed for adults and comprises pertinent pictures without excessive visuals and colorful text, making it adequately attractive and informative. Moreover, the brochure has different credible resources, such as Yale University Rudd Center, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Letsmove, and The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS).
Although the pamphlet is available only in English, it is objective, without any biases or prejudicial language. Moreover, it contains information related to minorities; for example, “Non-Hispanic black women and Hispanics have the highest rates of obesity (41.9% and 30.7%)” (“Adult obesity,” 2010, p. 2). The content also avoids ageism, classism, racism, and sexism, or other humiliating terms. Finally, the brochure event indicates that many Americans possess less access to markets and stores with healthy, affordable food.
Breadth
The CDC’s brochure has four pages of educational material organized by separate headers in a logical order, which is comfortable enough for the target population. The first page presents critical facts and a summary with the most important information on the prevalence at the national and state levels. The second page details the problem regarding its meaning, importance, scale, causes, related diseases, and associated concerns. The third page comprises the complications stemming from obesity, the states’ information on this issue, while the last page indicates activities and actions that can be made on national, state, communal, and personal levels. In particular, the pamphlet states that all obese people can modify their diets and lifestyle by increasing physical activity and advocate for respective policies.
Consistency
Since the brochure was published in 2010, the presented information is slightly inconsistent with the current data, especially concerning obesity prevalence. For instance, the booklet specifies that over 72 million US adults are obese, while, between 2017 – 2018, the USA obesity prevalence among adults reached over 42 percent, that is, almost half of the whole population (Hales et al., 2020).
Nevertheless, the information provided is still highly valuable since the pamphlet follows all federal public health agencies’ recommendations for the latest years. In addition, the language is easy to read and understandable for most people, containing general phrases and evading complicated terms and notions. Finally, although the CDC’s brochure cannot be related to the comprehensive handbook, it has tips and advice helpful for everybody willing to lose weight.
Readability
Flesch readability score is regarded as one of the most famous and widely used readability tests to evaluate the writing’s simplicity and determine its grade level. After calculations, the CDC’s brochure received Flesch Kincaid Grade Level of 6.8 and Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease of 57.9. That is, the pamphlet targets a grade level of about eight and can be comprehended by 13- or 15-year-olds. Thus, the readability of the given work is appropriate for the chosen community.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the paper has delivered the analysis of the brochure titled “Adult Obesity” concerning authenticity, breadth, consistency, and readability. In particular, the leaflet demonstrates the high reliability of provided information and pictures supported by credible resources. Concerning the breadth, it has four pages of educational material containing various facts, statistics, and recommendations in a logical order. The consistency of the work is also adequate despite that it was published in 2010. The readability of the pamphlet is proper for the target population. However, it is worth noting that the brochure is not comprehensive and does not reflect the current situation connected with obesity.
References
Adult obesity: Obesity rises among adults. (2010). CDC. Web.
Hales, C. M., Carroll, M. D., Fryar, C. D., & Ogden, C. L. (2020). Prevalence of obesity and severe obesity among adults: United States, 2017–2018. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Web.
Reduce the proportion of adults with obesity — NWS-03. (n.d.). US Department of Health & Human Services. Web.