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Food environments and obesity—neighbourhood or nation?

2005; Oxford University Press; Volume: 35; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/ije/dyi276

1464-3685

Steven Cummins, Sally MacIntyre,

Behavioral Health and Interventions

Obesity arises from an imbalance between energy input and output 1 but in this commentary we focus exclusively on environmental issues in energy intake in the developed world. Our aim is both to provide an overview of recent findings on obesogenic environments 2 and to point to cross national variations in their distribution. It has recently been suggested that individually focused interventions attempting to reduce obesity have had limited success, 3 and that the widespread and increasing prevalence of obesity is inadequately explained by individual-level psychological and social factors associated with diet or physical activity. 1,2,4,5 This suggestion is part of a broader critique of the over-emphasis on the role of individual health behaviours, which has tended to ignore the influence of the complex social and physical contexts in which individual behavioural decisions are made. 4,6 Such critiques have led to a new focus on ‘environmental’ exposures that encourage excessive food intake and discourage physical activity. 7–10