Open Letter

Being a nutritionist and an advocate of health lifestyle to prevent diseases, I hope to persuade you to documentary invalidate the breastfeeding policy which has been implemented with an aim of preventing obesity in children. I understand the importance of breastfeeding and its influence in reducing obesiy in children. The new breastfeeding policy implemented by the State of Florida is aimed at promoting and extending breastfeeding period so that children are protected from obesty. However, this is not the way to solve the problem. Policies are meant to offer guidelines on what should be done but mostpeople normally view policies as part of politics and a way to manipulate and control them. Therefore, by having such a policy, it will only worsen the situation. According to (Presteung 2017) some women fail to breastfeed their children because of health problems. Therefore, this issue should be handled by healthcare professionals and not by implementing policies that will only aggreviate the situation. Obesty is a health issue, so healthcare professionals should handle this issue professionally and ethically but not politically. Breastfeeding is a moral responsibility for every mother, therefore, the society has a role to play to encourage women to breastfeed.

The new provincial breastfeeding policy by the Florida state has not offered the solution that is required. In order to promote a culture of breastfeeding, it is important to consider the cause of the problem. Why are mothers in Florida not breastfeeding their children? Most families in florida suffer from food insecurity (CDC, 2018). Therefore it is difficult for a mother to breastfeed the child when she is hungry. Policies should be put in place to promote the living standards of all Florida families and ensure they have enough food for the family. This will promote breastfeeding culture without using breastfeeding policies.

The issue of obesity hasbecomea global issue that does not affect children only but all people regardless of age. However, increase in children obesity has attracted attention from many healthcare practitioners leading to development of different health programs for the samecourse. This has also led to formation of different policies on the same issue. Lack of consistency in the policy developed for this issue have made obesity to persist in children. Policies are not always welcomed with both hands. People often try to bend the rules and do what is not policized. In the same way, breasting feeding mothers ignore the policy and argue that policies are used by politicians to create inequality and control people , this has created a culture that does not embrace breastfeeding (Leng, 2018). This shows that policies in a way facilitate ignorance and bring more problems than they purport to solve. Therefore, the issue of obesity in children and breastfeeding should not be solved by formulating breasting feeding policies but by remedying the broader issues in the society that influence the breastfeeding culture

Obesity is one of the major concerns that will continue to affect the healthcare sector not only in Florida but globally. However, if the healthcare professionals are empowered and allowed to solve this issue without any political interference, positive changes can be experienced. Since obesity is a health issue, the government should let the healthcare professionals to handle the situation without involving politics. The government should help by providing sufficient resources to hospitals so that  breastfeeding programs can be started (CDC, 2018). The government should also ensure that all households have enough food.  Kindly consider my suggestion and change/drop the breastfeeding policy.

I will appreciate the reconsideration. Thank you.