Identification of Potential Barriers to Planned Implementation
Potential Barriers
Efforts that seek to prevent and respond to childhood obesity problem must take into account potential barriers and limitations for them to be successful. For instance, there are numerous potential barriers that hamper adolescents from accessing these programs and services (Smith et al. 2014). Adolescents can be difficult to recruit to healthy lifestyle initiatives for different reasons. For some, the fear of humiliation or bullying makes it harder to seek help. For others, the promotion of a healthy lifestyle is not enticing if they are overly concerned about their weight. In most situations, adolescents do not want to admit that they are overweight.
Another potential barrier is the challenge experienced in the retention of program participants. This is especially true for families who find it hard to remain engaged with the program (Smith et al. 2014). For most families, this requires a commitment in terms of time engagement. Another program-specific factor of start and finish times can be viewed as a barrier that makes it tougher for families to remain engaged in the long-run. Some participants are conflicted in their view for the most appropriate start time, since others seek to include children and adolescents immediately after schooling hours or days (Smith et al. 2014). For some parents, if these programs cannot be implemented full time, they have to be addressed during working part time hours.