Obesity has joined the list of “wicked problems” with associated implications for public health, food security, and the entire food supply chain. This paper examines the possible causes, consequences, and policy implications, especially important in an environment of shrinking budgets. The causes of obesity are multifaceted and involve complex interactions; hence any successful prevention and mitigation strategy should identify the key factors and interactions thereof. We propose a dynamic and integrated individual, social, economic and environmental model (ISEEM) to accomplish this. Within this framework, the optimal mix of economic incentives, better education, and land use planning emerge as key factors in obesity prevention and mitigation and the promotion of healthier, more sustainable communities. The use of the ISEEM framework, involving a combination of strategies targeted to specific circumstances of individual communities and localities, could address this wicked problem in an environment characterized by increasing conflicts among budgets, heuristics, and politics. 1. Introduction Despite decades of research, policy makers are still debating the causes, consequences, and much needed policy interventions to combat obesity. Obesity is reaching epidemic proportions especially in the developed and, more recently, in the developing world, where the problem is compounded by a myriad of socioeconomic, demographic, built, and natural environmental factors. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) over one billion adults around the globe are overweight and about 700 million of those are considered to be obese [1]. In the United States about 64% of adults aged 20–74 are overweight and 30% of those are estimated to be obese [2, 3]. Obesity, defined in terms of body mass index (BMI), is a function of both height and weight. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH) US guidelines, adults having a BMI ≥ 30？(kg/m2) are considered obese, and those with a BMI 25–29.9？(kg/m2) are considered to be overweight. For children, a BMI at or above the 95th percentile, depending on age and sex-specific growth charts, is considered to be obese [4]. Overweight and obesity increase the risk of having other diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer [5, 6]. Health care expenditures of obesity in the USA are reported to be in the range of $11–14 billion for children and youth and $ 75–90 billion for adults [7]. The increased burden has led to an intense debate to call for significant policy initiatives to prevent obesity [8, 9]. While
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