Acting against obesity: a cross-cultural analysis of prevention models in Spain, Argentina and Brazil

Abstract

Background: In contexts where prevalence of obesity has increased rapidly, sociocultural causes acquire greater explanatory power as opposed to biological and/or behavioural factors. These models premise worsening diets and sedentary lifestyles as being the main culprits and assume that contemporary societies generate obesogenic and toxic environments. This article analyses and compares preventive models for obesity in Spain, Argentina and Brazil through an examination of the respective measures adopted to counter it in those countries. The primary aim is to delineate the conceptual framework and reflect on the reasons for their relative effectiveness. Methods: This qualitative study is based on the content analysis of programmes developed by the Spanish, Argentinian and Brazilian health authorities to deal with obesity from 2005 to the present. The texts have been carefully collated by accessing the health ministry websites classifying them according to subject, year of publication and implementation, their specific objectives and proposals for action. A total of 46 documents were selected during 2017-19. In a complementary way, statistical sources have been used in order to better understand changes in living conditions and health. Results: Over the last fifteen years, the international health bodies have developed specific strategies to control and prevent obesity based on a global diagnosis, whose features have been supported by these three countries. Although the measures reflect certain particularities, they conform to a common pattern organised from platforms promoting so-called “healthy lifestyles” for all. Most of the measures taken have minimized consideration of the social determinants of health, ignoring that epidemiological sources and statistics indicate that obesity rates have increased most quickly among individuals of low socioeconomic status during this period. In general, the responses have been formulated without further research into the different dimensions of obesity, either because they have been short-term, not based on diagnoses adjusted to each context. Conclusions : The discussion suggests that the excessive emphasis on individual responsibility and the underplaying of the role of food as a complex practice, as well as changing structural factors and the differential distribution of this disease, might largely explain the limited impact of these strategies. Key words : food; obesity; health policies; preventive model; social inequality; cross-cultural analysis.

Psychosocial and Diet-Related Lifestyle Clusters in Overweight and Obesity

“…In addition, obesity is contextually constructed, both in terms of understandings and causations. Scholars and experts are stressing the increasing explanatory power of sociocultural factors that generate obesogenic environments, beyond biological and behavioural factors [ 80 , 81 ]. Thus, beliefs and attitudes towards excessive weight held by non-obese people, obese people, children and adolescents, educators, employers, healthcare professionals, and policy makers; health-related choices and lifestyle practices; relationships with individuals with excessive weight in all spheres of daily life; and, broadly, social weight-centered discourses on obesity, are influenced by a myriad of sociocultural factors in intersection with other influences coming from ethnic, socioeconomic, age, gender, literacy, employment, rural/urban living, and migration factors, among others.…”