4 Quiz

Conclusion

In this course you have considered how, in relation to our health choices, we do make choices – but not in circumstances of our own choosing. Yes, we can make choices about what we eat, but we are at least influenced (knowing or unknowingly) by other factors. Therefore, it isn’t just us who are responsible for addressing our own obesity; it’s something for the food industry to engage with as well. You have considered two ways of investigating these matters: quantitative and qualitative methods. (You have not gone into either in great depth in this short course, but hopefully it has opened up an interest to study this topic further.) These research methods are not opposed to each other, rather they ask different types of questions.

Providing people with adequate knowledge about what they eat, in addition to ensuring that government, industry and individuals work together, will assist in encouraging healthy behavioural change. Strategies are already in place, and theories of behavioural change are utilised, but it is likely that greater efforts will be required to ensure the upward trend in obesity is reversed.

This free OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course K212 Critical ideas in wellbeing and public health.