Background: Over the past decades, the prevalence of obesity among adults has rapidly increased, particularly in socioeconomically deprived urban neighbourhoods. To better understand the complex mechanisms behind this trend, we created a system map exposing the underlying system driving obesity prevalence in socioeconomically deprived urban neighbourhoods over the last three decades in the Netherlands.
Methods: We conducted Group Model Building (GMB) sessions with a group of thirteen interdisciplinary experts to develop a Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) of the obesogenic system.
This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to quantify differences in type 2 diabetes (T2D) complications between ethnic minority populations and European host populations, in both cross-sectional and prospective studies. Following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses guidelines, we searched multiple databases for studies (until July 1, 2024) with T2D complications as outcome. Studies were included if they compared ethnic minority populations to the host population and were conducted in Europe.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Obesity may affect an individual's immune response and subsequent risk of infection, such as a SARS-CoV-2 infection. It is less clear whether overweight and long-term obesity also constitute risk factors. We investigated the association between the degree and duration of overweight and obesity and SARS-CoV-2 infection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe adoption of prevention policies that address our obesogenic society remains deficient. We investigated how to overcome policy inertia, using qualitative literature review and theories and concepts from the political and complexity sciences. Our findings indicate that multiple self-reinforcing processes buttress the assumption that obesity is an individual problem, strengthening the biomedical and commercial weight-loss sectors' claim to ownership over solutions.
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