Author: Lauren Love Major: Nursing
During this past spring and fall semester of 2019, I performed research in the nursing department under my advisor, Dr. Marilou Shreve. Our research was designed to explore the perceptions and attitudes of health in Marshallese adolescents that are overweight in Northwest Arkansas through focus groups. The overall goal of our research was to investigate themes for commonality amongst adolescents about how they perceive their weight and their beliefs towards health and body image. By finding these themes through our focus groups, we hope to use that information to come up with ways to better communicate with Marshallese adolescents on health and wellness issues including, but not limited to weight.
Last spring, I conducted two focus groups with overweight Marshallese adolescents. These groups were multi-sex and were divided by age to enable discussion with peers in the same developmental stage. At the beginning of the focus groups, warm up activities and questions were used to break the ice, such as having the group identify words or ideas that come to mind when they think of a healthy person. After the warmup activities and questions, I asked the adolescents to participate in an activity as a group. They compiled cards showing silhouettes of individuals ranging in body size into healthy and unhealthy piles. Once the piles were complete, I used probing questions to ask about the process they used to group the cards into the healthy versus unhealthy piles. The responses gathered from these focus groups and surveys that the adolescents also filled out at the beginning of the focus groups was the data I used to analyze for themes. The focus groups were recorded and later transcribed, so this fall semester mainly consisted of analyzing the data to find common themes. The main themes found across all of the adolescents identified that nutrition, activity, attitudes and mental health affect whether an individual would be healthy or unhealthy.
After conducting focus groups with the Marshallese adolescents, their perceptions and attitudes on health gave us information on how what they think affects their health. Their attitudes towards health may have been influenced by their culture. One participant explained that in the Marshallese culture, “if you are skinny, you do not eat enough food. Skinny is unhealthy [and being] ‘big’ is healthier. If a family is too fat or too skinny, they are unhealthy.” This might explain why the Marshallese adolescents organized the cards like they did and could also be why Marshallese adolescents tend to be overweight in the first place. The collectiveness of the Marshallese family unit may help explain why the younger adolescents do not see themselves as responsible for their health, but rather made the family responsible for their health. The older adolescents seem to be more individualized and place the responsibility for their health upon themselves, which may be due to their stage of development and/or due to acculturation. American culture is very individualized, so the older Marshallese adolescents might be adopting some of those independent attitudes. Additionally, both groups of adolescents associated mental health with being healthy or unhealthy. They mentioned the importance of having a positive attitude, avoiding negativity, motivating yourself and having positive influences. This may be due to the increasing mental-health awareness in today’s society or this may reflect some of their individual struggles with mental health related to their body image and how they overcame them. Furthermore, the Marshallese adolescents understood that nutrition, activity, and attitudes play a huge role in the overall health of an individual. They also understood the importance of being healthy to be happy, prevent health problems and to potentially live longer.
After completing my research, I created a poster to present my findings at the National Student Nurses Association Midyear Conference in Chicago. I had the opportunity to present my research to nursing students and faculty from across the country on November 1st and 2nd. The more I recited my research findings, the prouder I felt about what I accomplished, and I enjoyed hearing feedback from faculty and students. One faculty member knew a lady who specializes in writing children’s books to help encourage healthy habits, and another faculty member had a colleague working on childhood obesity research and gave me her business card. I had no idea what doors presenting my honors research could open. Additionally, I finished writing my honors thesis paper and I will publish my work on ScholarWorks.
My research has a real-world application because it is evident that childhood obesity is a growing problem here in Arkansas, in the United States, and across the globe. Using this data, health care providers should be able to better understand what Marshallese adolescents perceive and their attitudes towards health in order to help them maintain healthy lifestyles. It is important for providers when developing interventions to include the whole family with specific responsibility for each activity. This may clarify the responsibilities and actions for each individual of the family, ensuring that the age and developmental stage of every adolescent is taken into consideration. This project is part of a large exploration of perceptions and attitudes of adolescents of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds as well as their parent’s attitudes and perceptions of health and weight. Identifying perceptions and attitudes of both adolescents and parents from multicultural backgrounds may assist health care providers to communicate more effectively with families on health and weight management strategies.
My next steps are to pass the NCLEX and begin working as a pediatric oncology nurse at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. My findings and thesis will be a part of the larger research exploration and I will be noted as an author once the overall study is ready for publication. I am very thankful for Dr. Shreve’s guidance and support throughout this process. She allowed me to work independently, while helping me analyze the data and review my thesis paper. Her mentorship has allowed me to enjoy this research and be interested in continuing research throughout my professional career.