Running Head: Struggling with Obesity 1

Struggling with obesity in the Community of Newbury Park, Ca

Health 102: Community Health Organizations and their Functions

PhotoVoice Paper 2019

Isabel Ruth Gross

California State University, Channel Islands

Fall 2019
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Struggling with obesity in the Community of Newbury Park, Ca

When I was trying to figure out what community I wanted to show. I thought about my

friends and people I see on an everyday basis. And I thought what could I highlight. When

talking to a young women about this assignment. She opened up to me about having a hard time

loosing weight and being obese. Then I thought this is a perfect community to highlight. Many

girls around me in my community strive for the perfect body. In Newbury Park and thousand

Oaks. All we see are beautiful thin, fit girls. But to be honest that is only a small amount of the

women around me. In my research I found that the definition of obesity has been

“precisely defined by the National Institutes of Health (the NIH) as a BMI (Body Mass

Index) of 30 and above. (A BMI of 30 is about 30 pounds overweight.) The BMI, a key

index for relating body weight to height, is a person's weight in kilograms (kg) divided by

their height in meters (m) squared. Since the BMI describes the body weight relative to

height, it correlates strongly (in adults) with the total body fat content.” (Jr.)

In other words what its is saying is that if you do not have that perfect thin body your are

considered overweight according to the BMI chart. I have found Three young women all in their

20s. Their ages are 21, 24 and 28. When looking at these women, you would not consider them

overweight or obese. But with society's standards they do not look perfect. Each lady works out

tries to eat healthy but they were not built with a small body.

The first lady I asked to interview gave me photo number one. For privacy sake, her

name is Alex. She lives in Newbury Park California, near the Thousand Oaks mall. Alex just

turned 21 in September. She told me she has struggled with her weight her whole life. She told

me that when she was in middle school, she was bullied for being “fat girl”. So she was

determined to lose weight. She tried running, eating healthy. But nothing was working. When
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she goes to high school she was determined to not be that “fat girl” anymore. She thought if she

just stopped eating then she would lose weight. Alex has always done sports, she was a muscular

girl. So when she stopped eating she lost weight. But she realized that she was losing her muscle

not her fat. She could not understand what she looked like this. She told me that after trying to

lose weight. She decided to try and get fit the healthy way. When I asked her to take a photo of

her community that has impacted her health. she gave me a picture of a McDonalds bag. She

explained, the reason she chose the bag is because fast food is easy and quick meal. It doesn’t

take long to get and since she is in college, she doesn’t have time to cook a proper meal at home.

But in the past year she has tried to cut out fast food and eat healthy food. At first she didn’t see

any difference, but the longer she stuck by it the more results she saw. Alex realized that she will

never have that perfect thin body. She has learned to embrace her body. She now continues to eat

healthy, trying to be the best version of herself she could be. Alex has lived in her community for

her whole life. When you grow up with the same people you see everybody good sides and bad.

She said that everybody struggles with their insecurities, and that they are not alone in what they

go through.

The second community member I interview was Bianca. Her story has some similarities

with Alex’s but Bianca’s story is something that many young women go through in our

community. Bianca is a 24 year old woman. She lives in Thousand Oaks, almost to westlake. She

works full time and graduated college. She also struggles with her weight but her weight gain has

been recent. She was active and fit in high school. Then when she went to college, everything

changed. She wasn’t playing sports. Spending more time in the library studying. She tried to eat

as healthy as she could. But somehow the pounds just kept adding. I asked Bianca to take a photo

of something that she thought impacted her life in her community. She gave me Photo two. She
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took a photo of a new gym that opened up near her. She was so excited that a new gym was

opening. She said that she was ready to change her habits and get fit. So told me that when it first

opened. She went to the gym five days a week and eat healthy for about a month. But when she

started to get stressed about work or her family drama. She stopped going to the gym and eating

as healthy. She explained that now every time she passes the gym, she feels guilty about not

going as often, which makes her more stressed. As a community we love to get gym

memberships because it makes us feel healthier and more active but it also can act as an anchor

when we don’t go as often as we should. Which in turn makes us more stressed and we end up

gaining weight.

The Third community member I interviewed was Lexi. She is married to her sweet

husband. She is 28 years old mom with three beautiful children. Lexi Live in Dos vientos. Which

is a small community in the back of Newbury Park. When I asked Lexi to take a photo of

something that might impact something in her community. She took a photo of the outside the

Victoria secret store near her. She explained that every time she goes passed the store she sees

the models on the big sign. They have a perfect body, no stretch marks or anything. She feels

disheartened when she sees those beautiful ladies. Since she has had three kids.Which she would

not give them up for all the money in the world. But her body is not the same as it was before

having her children. She had a nice body with no stretch marks. But that is not the case anymore.

Lexi said that I can never go back to the body she had before. When she was younger she could

eat whatever she wanted and not gain weight. But not she even looks at a piece of cake she gains

five pounds. The victoria secret models give young women an unrealistic body image. She has

many friends who look at that those pictures and say, why can not look like that? She hates that

young girls are starving themselves to try to strive to look like that. Lexi said something really
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impactful. She said that no young women's bodies are the same. We need to love the bodies we

are given. Yes we can help out by eating healthy and working out. But everybody's body is

beautiful.

After Interviewing these ladies. I realized that we need to change our society's norm of

what the ideal body type is. No one has that “perfect body”. As a community we need to lift

young girls up and show them that they are beautiful no matter what they might look like. Going

back to the beginning of the paper. Not everybody fits in the BMI guide. Some girls may be

considered overweight, But they only reason they are in that category is because they have large

bones and have lots of muscle or if they are short or tall. They are all perfect.

When Doing my research, I found that According to the Ventura county Fact sheet About

25.7% of people are considered overweight in the Thousand Oaks area. (overweight) But what

percentage of that fact is only considered overweight because that are tall and are larged boned. I

also found over half the population are females. The “Population Demographics for Ventura

County, California in 2019, 2018 said that 414,349 out of 823,318 are females.”

(Suburbanstats.org) There are so many women in our community and we need to support and

strive to help each other. We need to not bring them down and bully them. If we come up with a

safe place for our young ladies to get help that is a judge free zone. There will be less young

ladies trying to starve themselves because they think they are overweight. But in actuality they

are nowhere near overweight. And for the girls who might be a little overweight we need to

support them and help them change their lifestyles to better themselves for the future.
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Appendix

Photo one: Submitted by Alex Photo Two: Submitted By Bianca

Photo Three: submitted by lexi

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References

Jr., W. C. S. (2018, December 27). Definition of Obese. Retrieved from

https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=11760.

Overweight and Obesity among Children by California Cities - 2010. (2010, June 12). Retrieved

from www.publichealthadvocacy.org.

Suburbanstats.org. (2019). Current Ventura County, California Population, Demographics and

stats in 2019, 2018. Retrieved from https://suburbanstats.org/population/california/how-

many-people-live-in-ventura-county.