Meeting activity

Meeting activity

Problem: Obesity
Date of meeting: 15th March 2011
Time of meeting: 2:50 pm
Venue: W003
Group members:
Chair: Ahmed Omar
Minute taker: Saeed
Participant: Jumaa
Venue preparation:

Grouping of chairs round tables

Agenda:

The problem we are going to discuss is obesity in the middle eastern countries.

First item on the Agenda :

The reason for obesity is :-

·         Ahmed: lack of sufficient physical activity

·         Ahmed: physical activity of the population has significantly diminished with the availability of housemaids, private cars, television, and sophisticated household appliances

Possible solution:- 

·         Saeed: become a member of a gym and go there routinely.

·         Ahmed: get one hour or more of physical activity each day for you and your children; you can do this without going to the gym and paying expensive money. The best way to get yourself and your kids moving is to do the household chores routinely each day in a fun way.

Second item on the Agenda:

·         Ahmed: other major reasons for obesity in the Middle Eastern countries are:-

·         Ahmed: prevalence of the cultural notion that a fat child is healthy, while a thin one is sick

·         Saeed: also Women had an increased risk of obesity because of cultural customs and traditions that require women to stay at home as a housewife.

Possible solutions:-

·         Ahmed: broadcast advertisements on TV showing people the causes of obesity and advise them to improve their health life.

·         Saeed: setting up alerting campaigns on the types of food that people should not eat.     

Third item on the Agenda :

Reasons why children are facing obesity:-

·         Over-consuming food rich in carbohydrates, salt, fat, and processed sugar.

·         Children getting used to eat from fast food restaurants, because they don’t like their house food.

·         Children drinking sodas and eating snacks all the time instead of drinking milk or water, or eating vegetables.

Possible solutions:-

·         Ahmed: increase the price of fast food. Saeed: impossible to do and another reason , some people don’t care about money.

·         Saeed: there is another better solution; it’s to decrease the number of fast food restaurants.

·         Ahmed: also the government must decide a strict order to prevent all groceries from selling soft drinks to under aged people.

 Fourth item on the Agenda :-

·         Ahmed: lack of awareness from parents to their children from the risks of obesity.

·         Saeed: children look at their parents as their biggest models, and they may be affected if their parents have bad eating habits.

  Possible solutions:-

·         Ahmed: brochures or posters spread in the streets to make people aware of obesity or overweighting risks on a long term basis.

·         Saeed: advise parents to start walking, drink more water and less soda.

This is the last part of our meeting and we hoped we had benefited from the solutions that we discussed and we hope that we make a change. In the Middle Eastern countries we have a phrase that is known to everybody, the body healthy, the mind healthy.

In conclusion we thought that:

·         For the lack of physical activity we agreed that doing household chores routinely is the best solution.

·         For the cultural beliefs and customs about obesity we agreed that broadcasting or setting up TV advertisements and alerting campaigns is the best solution to make people aware.

·         For the children facing obesity we decided that the best solution is to prevent under-aged people from buying fast food and sodas.

·         For the lack of awareness from parents to the children we decided that spreading brochures and posters in the street for parents to become more active in their life is the best solution.