%0 Journal Article
%T Obesity Prevention and National Food Security: A Food Systems Approach
%A Lila Finney Rutten
%A Amy Lazarus Yaroch
%A Heather Patrick
%A Mary Story
%J ISRN Public Health
%D 2012
%R 10.5402/2012/539764
%X Interventions that cultivate sustainable food systems to promote health, prevent obesity, and improve food security have the potential for many large-scale and long-lasting benefits including improvements in social, environmental, health, and economic outcomes. We briefly summarize findings from previous research examining associations between obesity and food insecurity and discuss the need for greater synergy between food insecurity initiatives and national obesity prevention public health goals in the United States. The common ground between these two nutrition-related public health issues is explored, and the transformation needed in research and advocacy communities around the shared goal of improving population health through individual, environmental, and policy level changes to promote healthy sustainable food systems is discussed. We propose an ecological framework to simultaneously consider food insecurity and obesity that identifies levers for change to promote sustainable food systems to improve food security and prevent obesity. 1. Introduction The burdens of obesity and food insecurity are unequally distributed in the USA population, with shared risk factors rendering certain socioeconomic and racial and ethnic subgroups at greater risk for both [1¨C3]. The intersection of obesity and food insecurity in the USA points to a public health imperative for scientists, practitioners, and policy makers to document and address food system inadequacies and leverage existing social programs to simultaneously address the nutrition issues of obesity and food insecurity [3]. Both food insecurity and obesity are increasingly recognized as forms of malnutrition resulting from poor dietary quality (higher intakes of nutrient-poor energy-dense foods) [4]. Food insecurity and obesity stem from a shared food system, therefore, corrective action must be taken within the underlying system from which they derive [5, 6]. In this paper, we briefly discuss findings from research examining associations between food insecurity and obesity in the United States (USA) and emphasize the need for greater synergy between food insecurity policies and initiatives and national public health goals around obesity prevention. We identify the common ground between these nutrition-related public health issues and call for a broadening of scope in the research and advocacy communities to align efforts around the shared goal of improving the health of at risk populations. We propose an ecological framework that identifies levers for change within the physical and social aspects of
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn.public.health/2012/539764/