Publisher's Synopsis
The progressively accepted concept of the relationship between diet and health has opened new perspectives on the effects of food ingredients on physiological functions and health. Among the nutritional complications, increased incidence of obesity and its linked medical problems is producing a pressure from consumers towards the food industry which may provide an opportunity for the development of functional foods designed for the prevention and/or treatment of these pathologies. Obesity is a multifactor disease where several factors may influence its onset, which includes the contributions of inherited, metabolic, behavioural, environmental, cultural, and socioeconomic factors. Most of these factors may play together in different grades of contribution, which may vary between patients, and may influence treatment objectives in each individual. This volume is designed to provide an overview of the likely aetiological factors in the development of weight gain and obesity, to propose related population nutrient goals and content areas for food-based dietary guidelines, and to evaluate some of the potential food and diet related intervention strategies that might help to attenuate and eventually reverse this global epidemic. Prevention of obesity requires policies that work. This volume proposes new ways to understand how food policies could be made to work more effectively for obesity prevention. Different approach draws on evidence from a range of disciplines (psychology, economics, and public health nutrition) to develop a theory of change to understand how food policies work. We explore how actions in three specific policy areas work through these mechanisms, and draw implications for more effective policy design. We find that effective food-policy actions are those that lead to positive changes to food, social, and information environments and the systems that underpin them. Effective food-policy actions are tailored to the preference, behavioural, socioeconomic, and demographic characteristics of the people they seek to support, are designed to work through the mechanisms through which they have greatest effect, and are implemented as part of a combination of mutually reinforcing actions. This book aims to provide readers with a general as well as an advanced overview of the key trends in technological aspects of food for obesity prevention.
