OE-ILAC · Shifting the obesity epidemic in Iberia-Latin American cities: applying interdisciplinary, intersectional and intersectoral approaches to understand and change key obesogenic causes

Shifting the obesity epidemic in Iberia-Latin American cities: applying interdisciplinary, intersectional and intersectoral approaches to understand and change key obesogenic causes

Excess weight (overweight/obesity) has reached pandemic proportions in recent decades and is one of the most important public health concerns worldwide. Two other growing phenomena coexist and interact with the complex pandemic of overweight/obesity: social inequalities and urbanization. Overall, overweight/obesity is less common in more equal societies, and overweight/obesity prevalence as well as social inequalities are usually higher in more urban areas. Despite the implementation of numerous policies and interventions in the last decades, no country thus far successfully managed to reverse the overweight/obesity trends in the adult population. The focus has been traditionally placed on individual behaviours and responsibility, but it is necessary to move the field forward with interventions on the ‘root causes’: the social, economic, commercial, and political determinants. In spite of the considerable scientific evidence, what are the main drivers of the intertwined social and gender inequalities in overweight/obesity in urban contexts of the Ibero-American region, and to what extent public policies and interventions acknowledge that is still unclear. The aims of the OE-ILAC project are to identify the determinants of social and gender inequalities in overweight/obesity in cities of Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, to analyse public policies intended to prevent this condition, and to develop recommendations for policies and interventions by applying interdisciplinary, intersectional, and intersectoral approaches. Overall, OE-ILAC findings highlight the need of: i) improving women’s empowerment alongside focusing interventions in the most socially disadvantaged groups to address the gendered overweight/obesity pandemic in Latin America; ii) developing more context-specific policy interventions and considering the interplay between the place of residence and the social position of the individuals to tackle the persistent social and gender inequalities in overweight/obesity in Spain; iii) acknowledging the intersectional configuration (i.e., the intertwined social and gender inequalities) of excess weight to address this pandemic (particularly in Mexico but applicable to other countries of the region); and iv) promoting equity-based and context-sensitive policies and interventions to prevent overweight/obesity in Ibero-America.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union