Conceptualizing Ecobiosocial Interactions: Lessons from Obesity

Since the late 1990s, there has been increasing consensus that the global obesity epidemic is driven by environmental factors. Obesity is thus a good example of where human interaction with the environment can make and unmake health in many societies. In this chapter we examine frameworks designed to conceptualize the links between the environment and obesity. We focus on two frameworks of obesogenesis: that of the 'obesogenic environment', which was developed in the Asia-Pacific region, and the 'obesity system', which was developed in the UK. We describe the contexts in which these two frameworks were developed, and show how both synthesize environmental, biological and social factors. The frameworks reviewed suggest that obesity could be considered an ecobiosocial phenomenon. We then review anthropological understandings of human-environment interactions, and highlight that lived experience is not comprised of separate factors, but rather dynamic and interdependent processes. Elements of lived experience, such as social relations and historical change over time, are not fully captured by these two frameworks of obesity. Ecobiosocial frameworks informed by anthropological enquiry may be useful for describing obesity in future.