Development of Health Promotion Behaviors Program to Control Body Weight of Public Health Officers in Bureau of Health Promotion Department of Health, Ministry of Public Health

Abstract

Participatory Action Research (PAR) was used in this research. The purpose of this research was to develop health promotion behaviors program to control body weight of Public Health Officers in Bureau of Health Promotion, Department of Health, Ministry of Public Health and to evaluate the effectiveness of the model. The participants were conducted from 50 obese working [body mass index (BMI)>22.9 kg/m²] in Bureau of Health Promotion. Model and development process consists of understanding the problem, establishing a model and development plan, implementation, and evaluation. Data were collected by using the questionnaire on factors related to health promotion behaviors to control body weight with consist of 6 parts. Descriptive statistics used for data analysis consisted of frequency, percentage, average, and standard deviation. Content analysis was done for the qualitative data. The finding shown that after joining the program the average knowledge score of participants in term of body weight control had a statistically significant increase at p<0.05. The average knowledge score of health belief in term of the perception of the risk of obesity, severity, benefits of preventive obesity, and barriers of obesity’s prevention had a statistically significant increase at p<0.05. The average knowledge score of control body weight in term of food consumption, exercise, and emotional control had a statistically significant increase at p<0.05. The body weight, body mass index (BMI), and body fat percentage had a statistically significant decrease at p<0.05. Finally, normal upper and lower muscles strength had a statistically significant increase at p<0.05. This study provides suggestion that social support at home and work should be integrated into behavior modification to control body weight. Moreover, it should be always monitoring and evaluation to achieve the best outcomes and sustainable good health behaviors.