Obesity Prevention

Over the years, approaches to obesity prevention and treatment have gone from focusing on genetic and other biological factors to exploring a diversity of diets and individual behavior modification interventions anchored primarily in the power of the mind, to the recent shift focusing on societal interventions to design "temptation-proof" physical, social, and economic environments. In spite of repeated calls to action, including those of the World Health Organization (WHO), the pandemic continues to progress. WHO recently projected that if the current lifestyle trend in young and adult populations around the world persist, by 2012 in countries like the USA, health care costs may amount to as much as 17.7% of the GDP. Most importantly, in large part due to the problems of obesity, those children may be the first generation ever to have a shorter life expectancy than that of their parents.

Introduction and Handbook Overview: A Brain-to-Society Model of Choice and a Whole-of-Society Approach to Obesity Prevention; Part 1: From Brain to Behavior; A. Energy is Delight: Sensory and Reward Systems; B. Executive Control Systems and the Challenges They Face in the Modern World of Plenty; C. Biological Systems that Favor a Positive Energy Balance and Body Weight Increase in a World of Plently; D. Integrative and Multi-Level Models of Eating and of Energy and Body Weight Regulation; E. Individual-Level Interventions to Tap into Appropriate Brain Systems for Sustainable Behavioral Change; Part 2: From Society to Behavior: Policy and Action; A. Economy as a Core Society System Shaping Policy and Action that Determine Behavior; B. Needs and Challenges in Policy and Action to Prevent Obesity; C. Policy and Action to Shift the Drivers of Food Supply and Demand of Agriculture and the Agri-Food Value Chains in a Healthy Direction; D. Policy and Action for Creating Families, Schools, Communities and Social Networks that Support Individual Healthy Choice; E. Challenges and Possibilities for Policy and Action in Reducing the Social and Economic Growth in Health, Lifestyle and Obesity; F. Challenges and Possibilities for Broad Systems Approach to Policy and Action; Conclusion: Ways Forward for a Whole-of-Society Approach to Obesity Prevention: Promoting a Healthy, Pleasurable Lifestyle that is Biologically, Culturally, Economically and Environmentally Sustainable