Research
Adherence
Modifying the food environment to reduce the availability of hyperpalatable, low-nutrient foods and increase access to healthy options is a critical step in reducing obesity incidence at the population level.
Advocate for changes in your community to make healthy food more accessible and appealing. This includes supporting policies that limit the availability of hyperpalatable, low-nutrient foods.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Modifying this aspect of the food environment may be one of the most effective routes for reducing obesity incidence at the population-level.
Why this rating
Based on the paper's synthesis of evidence regarding food environment and obesity.
Source
Breaking down silos: the multifaceted nature of obesity and the future of weight management
Faith Anne N. Heeren et al. · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2023
DOI 10.1098/rstb.2022.0215
narrative_reviewCited 16×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Obesity is not caused by a lack of willpower but is the result of complex interactions between individual biological factors and environmental determinants, requiring multifactorial prevention and treatment strategies.Strong
- Environmental-level factors, such as the food environment and socioeconomic status, interact with individual-level biological factors to drive obesity, and interventions focusing solely on the individual are suboptimal.Strong
- Current obesity treatments (behavioral, pharmacological, surgical) are effective but often result in weight regain, and their long-term success is limited by unchanged environmental factors.Good
Related findings · Adherence
- Regular physical activity (at least 150 minutes/week of moderate-intensity) reduces all-cause and cardiovascular mortality by 20-30% and lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes by 25-35%.Strong
- Increasing physical activity from a sedentary lifestyle to an active one in middle adulthood significantly reduces the risk of coronary events compared to remaining sedentary.Strong
- Resistance exercise is the only intervention capable of consistently restoring muscle function and strength in sarcopenia, partially overcoming age-related anabolic resistance.Strong
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