During the last 20-30 years, obesity has become a pandemic problem largely caused by the ongoing nutrition transition worldwide. Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) are now facing a faster transition than High-Income Countries (HICs), caused by high urbanization rates that involve rapid short-term adaptive strategies that are potentially obesogenic. Indeed, the nutrition transition is characterized by changing dietary habits and sedentary lifestyles within a rapid urbanization process, favoring the development of Obesity-Related Metabolic Diseases (ORCDs), such as hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Hence, in sub-Saharan African populations, the prevalence of obesity and ORCDs continue to increase more than in HICs (absolute annual increase of overweight/obesity at 1.3% in West African urban women). Although obesity has a complex multi-factorial etiology, requiring interdisciplinary expertise to discern the potential patterns of drivers involved in its increasing prevalence worldwide, most studies use a uni-disciplinary approach: psychological, sociocultural, physiological, or genetics. This scientific strategy is probably responsible for the current failure to prevent obesity, whose prevalence has tripled since 1975 according to WHO. Hence, the biocultural background of populations is insufficiently considered to assess their particular adaptive capacity to evolve in new urban environments, to minimize their exposure to ORCDs’ risks.
Although the genetic determinants of obesity are well understood, their respective effect as well as systemic interactions on body weight regulation remain poorly understood. Moreover, the pathways predicting ORCDs between sociodemographic indirect determinants (age, sex, education, urban lifetime duration, etc.) and socio-ecological direct determinants (dietary intake and physical activity) are also rarely explored to study the etiology of ORCDs. Yet, both respective and cumulative contributions of these drivers, as well as the multiple driver pathways leading to ORCDs, must be explored to explain the difference in the prevalence and incidence of ORCDs between countries, and better identify at-risk subgroups toward this rising burden.
Accordingly, the aim of this Research Topic consists of refocusing the study of obesity at an anthropological scale, by considering holistically populations’ characteristics (sociodemographic and socio-ecological) that influence their degree of adaptation to obesogenic urban environments, to provide new insights to develop anthropologically relevant targeted programs to prevent and treat obesity and ORCDs.
All qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods approaches will be considered by our editorial board to address the main questions of this interdisciplinary Research Topic at the frontier between anthropology and public health.
Keywords:
Nutrition Transition, Obesity-Related Metabolic Diseases, Sociodemographic and Socio-ecological Determinants, Urbanization, Obesogenic Environments, Anthropology
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
During the last 20-30 years, obesity has become a pandemic problem largely caused by the ongoing nutrition transition worldwide. Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) are now facing a faster transition than High-Income Countries (HICs), caused by high urbanization rates that involve rapid short-term adaptive strategies that are potentially obesogenic. Indeed, the nutrition transition is characterized by changing dietary habits and sedentary lifestyles within a rapid urbanization process, favoring the development of Obesity-Related Metabolic Diseases (ORCDs), such as hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Hence, in sub-Saharan African populations, the prevalence of obesity and ORCDs continue to increase more than in HICs (absolute annual increase of overweight/obesity at 1.3% in West African urban women). Although obesity has a complex multi-factorial etiology, requiring interdisciplinary expertise to discern the potential patterns of drivers involved in its increasing prevalence worldwide, most studies use a uni-disciplinary approach: psychological, sociocultural, physiological, or genetics. This scientific strategy is probably responsible for the current failure to prevent obesity, whose prevalence has tripled since 1975 according to WHO. Hence, the biocultural background of populations is insufficiently considered to assess their particular adaptive capacity to evolve in new urban environments, to minimize their exposure to ORCDs’ risks.
Although the genetic determinants of obesity are well understood, their respective effect as well as systemic interactions on body weight regulation remain poorly understood. Moreover, the pathways predicting ORCDs between sociodemographic indirect determinants (age, sex, education, urban lifetime duration, etc.) and socio-ecological direct determinants (dietary intake and physical activity) are also rarely explored to study the etiology of ORCDs. Yet, both respective and cumulative contributions of these drivers, as well as the multiple driver pathways leading to ORCDs, must be explored to explain the difference in the prevalence and incidence of ORCDs between countries, and better identify at-risk subgroups toward this rising burden.
Accordingly, the aim of this Research Topic consists of refocusing the study of obesity at an anthropological scale, by considering holistically populations’ characteristics (sociodemographic and socio-ecological) that influence their degree of adaptation to obesogenic urban environments, to provide new insights to develop anthropologically relevant targeted programs to prevent and treat obesity and ORCDs.
All qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods approaches will be considered by our editorial board to address the main questions of this interdisciplinary Research Topic at the frontier between anthropology and public health.
Keywords:
Nutrition Transition, Obesity-Related Metabolic Diseases, Sociodemographic and Socio-ecological Determinants, Urbanization, Obesogenic Environments, Anthropology
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.