Obesity as a Complex Problem

Obesity has increased dramatically across the world, and there is currently no solution to its control. While obesity is easily understood as the positive imbalance of energy intake and expenditure, this does not explain why it is easy to overeat and underexercise. Explanatory models that feed into energy balance include those of obesogenic environments, thrifty genotype, obesogenic behaviour, obesogenic culture, nutrition transition, political economic structures and biocultural interactions of genetics, environment, behaviour and culture. The last of these models has obesity as an outcome of the complex systems which constitute modern life, and in which biology, environment, sociality, economics, infrastructure, culture and behaviour interact. An attempt to understand obesity as complex system has come with an initiative of the British government, in which a qualitative systems map of obesity for the British population has been generated. In this presentation, various models of population obesity are considered in relation to the idea of obesity as complex system.