Socioeconomic and environmental factors key to addressing the global obesity epidemic, experts flag

30 May 2024 --- New research from Brazil and Mexico explores the cause behind the obesity boom in Latin America, which may have broad implications beyond the region. The review article asserts that socioeconomic, cultural and epigenetic causes of obesity can be just as, if not more, significant as personal lifestyle choices.

“Nutritional and pharmacological strategies are important to mitigate the problem, but is this enough?” asks Marcelo Mori, co-author of the article and a scientist affiliated with the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center hosted by the State University of Campinas in São Paulo state, Brazil.

“We know socioeconomic and environmental factors influence the occurrence of obesity more than any others, such as genes or blaming people for their own obesity. The fact is that obesity goes well beyond the individual struggle against sedentarism and the need for lifestyle changes.”

According to the authors, Latin America’s struggle with obesity can be explained by eight factors — physical environment, food exposure, economic and political interests, social inequality, limited access to scientific knowledge, culture, contextual behavior and genetics.

The authors also point out that if they are to be effective, public policies and strategies to combat obesity should acknowledge these aspects of causality. 

A broad look at obesity 
The article published in Nature Metabolism further underlines the significance of multidisciplinary and global scientific approaches to this public health struggle.

“We focused on factors with overlapping effects on weight gain and emphasized the importance of looking at the problem more carefully and broadly, and of intervening on the basis of more contextualized solutions,” Mori details.

“Are lifestyle changes part of these? Indeed they are, but they should above all be associated with changes in the community and the environment rather than being the sole responsibility of the individual.”

Middle and low-income countries are leaving behind severe undernourishment, while seeing a rapid rise in obesity rates.Mori adds that regional differences in the socioeconomic and cultural drivers can impact the obesity epidemic. “This means there isn’t a single solution to the problem.” 

The paper highlights the fact that many developing countries now have much higher and more rapidly rising obesity rates than they did in the past. In Latin America, the number of overweight or obese adults as a proportion of the population is 75% in Mexico, 74% in Chile, 68% in Argentina, 57% in Colombia and 55% in Brazil. 

Obesity among children and adolescents in Chile amounts to 53%, 41% in Argentina, 39% in Mexico, 30% in Brazil and 22% in Colombia.

“Many middle and low-income countries in Latin America and elsewhere have left behind severe undernourishment and are seeing a rapid rise in obesity rates. It’s possible that this fast transition from malnutrition to an abundance of ultra-processed and hypercaloric foods is a significant factor in the creation of an epigenetic inheritance that is contributing to the recent rise in obesity rates, especially among children.”

“More research is required to confirm this hypothesis,” asserts Mori. “We import both the problem and the potential solution from the developed countries. We copy their habits and lifestyles and accept the formulas they propose.” 

“At the same time, we pay for food products that put us in this position and for medications that so far have reached only a small proportion of our population. So we pay twice over, and yet we’re still losing the fight against the obesity epidemic.”

By Milana Nikolova