Obesity primary prevention

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]

Overview[edit | edit source]

Primary Prevention[edit | edit source]

Public Health and Policy Responses[edit | edit source]

Public health and policy responses to obesity seek to understand and correct the environmental factors responsible for shifts in the prevalence of overweight and obesity in a population. Obesity and overweight are, currently, primarily policy problems in the United States. Policy and public health solutions look to change the environmental factors that promote calorie dense, low nutrient food consumption and that inhibit physical activity.

In the United States, policy has focused primarily on controlling childhood obesity which has the most serious long-term public health implication. Efforts have been underway to target schools. There are efforts underway to reform federally-reimbursed meal programs, limit food marketing to children, and ban or limit access to sugar sweetened beverages. In Europe, policy has focused on limiting marketing to children. There has been international focus on sugar policy and the role of agriculture policy in producing food environments that produce overweight and obesity in a population. To confront physical activity, efforts have examined zoning and access parks and safe routes in cities.

In the United Kingdom, a 2004 report by the Royal College of Physicians, the Faculty of Public Health and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, titled "Storing up Problems",^[1] was followed by a report by the British House of Commons Health Select Committee - the "the most comprehensive inquiry" ever by that body - on the impact of obesity on health and society in the UK and possible approaches to the problem.^[2] In 2006, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) issued a guideline on the diagnosis and management of obesity, as well as policy implications for non-healthcare organizations such as local councils. A 2007 report produced by Sir Derek Wanless for the King's Fund warned that unless further action was taken, obesity had the capacity to cripple the National Health Service financially.^[3]

References[edit | edit source]

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