Acting against obesity: a cross-cultural analysis of prevention models in Spain, Argentina and Brazil.

This article analyses and compares preventive models for obesity in Spain, Argentina and Brazil through an examination of the respective measures adopted to counter it in those countries. Based on a qualitative study of the main actions carried out since 2004, the aim is to delineate the conceptual framework and reflect on the reasons for their relative effectiveness. The results show that in contexts where prevalence has increased rapidly, sociocultural causes acquire greater explanatory power as opposed to biological and/or behavioral factors. These models premise worsening diets and sedentary lifestyles as being the main culprits, and assume that contemporary societies generate obesogenic and toxic environments. The international health bodies have developed specific strategies to control and prevent obesity based on this diagnosis, and these have been supported by member states such as Spain, Argentina and Brazil. Although the measures reflect certain particularities, they conform to a common pattern organized from platforms promoting so-called "healthy lifestyles" and articulated mainly around the twin axes of a balanced diet and regular physical exercise. The discussion suggests that the excessive emphasis on individual responsibility and the underplaying of the role of food as a complex practice, as well as changing structural factors and the differential distribution of this disease, might largely explain the limited impact of these strategies.

[Social inequality and health: Food (in)security management in primary health care in Spain]. / Desigualdad social y salud: la gestión de la (in)seguridad alimentaria en atención primaria en España.

Equity is an unresolved issue on the Spanish healthcare agenda. This paper explores the importance that health professionals give to social determinants of health and the means they possess to address them. It also analyzes the relationship between food insecurity and increases in certain diseases. One of its objectives is to ascertain how increasing uncertainty is being addressed in primary healthcare services. We present a qualitative study carried out in six primary care centers in the cities of Reus and Tarragona between 2018 and 2019, involving 19 practitioners active in the areas of nursing, family practice, and social work. Results indicate that the lack of resources in primary care centers makes it difficult to integrate a social determinants of health approach, and thus to mitigate inequalities. Furthermore, a lack of structural actions diminishes the ability to respond to citizens' healthcare needs.

La equidad es un asunto pendiente en la agenda sanitaria española. Este artículo explora el papel que los profesionales sanitarios otorgan a los determinantes sociales de salud y a los medios que disponen para abordarlos. Analiza también las relaciones que establecen entre el incremento de ciertas enfermedades y la inseguridad alimentaria. Uno de sus objetivos es determinar el modo en que la incertidumbre creciente es abordada en los servicios de atención primaria. Presentamos un estudio cualitativo llevado a cabo entre 2018 y 2019 en seis centros de atención primaria de las ciudades de Reus y Tarragona, donde han participado 19 profesionales activos en las áreas de enfermería, medicina general y trabajo social. Los resultados indican que la falta de recursos de estos centros dificulta integrar el enfoque de los determinantes sociales de salud y amortiguar así las desigualdades. Además, la falta de acciones estructurales reduce su respuesta a las necesidades de salud de la ciudadanía.

Desigualdad social y salud: la gestión de la (in)seguridad alimentaria en atención primaria en España / Social inequality and health: Food (in)security management in primary health care in Spain

RESUMEN La equidad es un asunto pendiente en la agenda sanitaria española. Este artículo explora el papel que los profesionales sanitarios otorgan a los determinantes sociales de salud y a los medios que disponen para abordarlos. Analiza también las relaciones que establecen entre el incremento de ciertas enfermedades y la inseguridad alimentaria. Uno de sus objetivos es determinar el modo en que la incertidumbre creciente es abordada en los servicios de atención primaria. Presentamos un estudio cualitativo llevado a cabo entre 2018 y 2019 en seis centros de atención primaria de las ciudades de Reus y Tarragona, donde han participado 19 profesionales activos en las áreas de enfermería, medicina general y trabajo social. Los resultados indican que la falta de recursos de estos centros dificulta integrar el enfoque de los determinantes sociales de salud y amortiguar así las desigualdades. Además, la falta de acciones estructurales reduce su respuesta a las necesidades de salud de la ciudadanía.

ABSTRACT Equity is an unresolved issue on the Spanish healthcare agenda. This paper explores the importance that health professionals give to social determinants of health and the means they possess to address them. It also analyzes the relationship between food insecurity and increases in certain diseases. One of its objectives is to ascertain how increasing uncertainty is being addressed in primary healthcare services. We present a qualitative study carried out in six primary care centers in the cities of Reus and Tarragona between 2018 and 2019, involving 19 practitioners active in the areas of nursing, family practice, and social work. Results indicate that the lack of resources in primary care centers makes it difficult to integrate a social determinants of health approach, and thus to mitigate inequalities. Furthermore, a lack of structural actions diminishes the ability to respond to citizens' healthcare needs.

[Preventing obesity in precarious contexts: local responses to global strategies]. / Prevenir la obesidad en contextos de precarización: respuestas locales a estrategias globales.

The aim of this article is to analyze the conceptual structure underlying the models of obesity prevention implemented in Argentina, Brazil, and Spain. In their culturally distinct but epidemiologically similar contexts, the three countries have devised strategies that reproduce global diagnoses of the causes of obesity and replicate some of the measures proposed at the global level. While so-called "obesogenic environments" are considered primarily responsible for these tendencies, efforts to raise awareness about food and nutrition tend to promote self-monitoring and behavior rationalization as the main tools for achieving changes in diet and physical activity. Although a variety of measures have been proposed at the local level, they have been less diverse in terms of their nature and scope, barely taking into account the constraints that hinder the adoption of healthy lifestyles. In contexts of social and food precarity, this has meant neglecting the social groups with the highest prevalence of obesity.

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la estructura conceptual subyacente de los modelos preventivos sobre la obesidad implementados en Argentina, Brasil y España. En un contexto culturalmente distinto, pero epidemiológicamente similar, los tres países han diseñado sus estrategias, reproduciendo el diagnóstico global sobre sus causas y replicando algunas de las medidas propuestas a nivel mundial. Mientras que los denominados "ambientes obesogénicos" son considerados los principales responsables de estas tendencias, las acciones de educación alimentaria y nutricional promueven la autovigilancia y la racionalización de las prácticas como herramienta principal para lograr cambios en la dieta y la actividad física. Aunque las medidas propuestas a nivel local han sido variadas, fueron menos plurales en cuanto a su naturaleza y alcance, y apenas se incorporan las limitaciones que dificultan adoptar estilos de vida saludables. En contextos de precarización social y alimentaria, esto ha supuesto desconsiderar a los grupos sociales con mayor prevalencia de obesidad.

Comer en tiempos de "crisis": nuevos contextos alimentarios y de salud en España / Eating in a time of "crisis": New health and dietary contexts in Spain

En las sociedades industrializadas se está reflexionando cada vez más sobre el impacto de la inseguridad alimentaria, entendida como la dificultad para asegurar la accesibilidad de una parte de la población a los recursos alimentarios suficientes para garantizar su subsistencia y bienestar. Con base en datos recogidos a partir de una investigación en curso en España, este artículo discute, por un lado, si la actual crisis económica está revirtiendo algunas de las tendencias positivas que el sistema agroalimentario industrial había favorecido, como la disminución de las diferencias sociales en el consumo y el derecho a la alimentación. Por otro lado, reflexiona acerca de la creciente precarización en las estrategias alimentarias y en el estado de salud de la población, así como sobre la necesidad de considerar la desigualdad social como variable explicativa de las diversas maneras de alimentarse.

This article analyzes the reasons why food insecurity in Spain must increasingly be understood as lack of access to sufficient food resources to guarantee the survival and wellbeing of part of the population. Using data collected in an ongoing research project, two possible causes for this are explored. First, it is argued that certain positive developments that seemed firmly established, such as recognition of the right to an adequate diet and the leveling out of social differences in food consumption, are now being reversed by the current economic crisis. Second, the analysis focuses on strategies people in precarious circumstances use to obtain food, their relationship to health, and the need to take social inequality into consideration as an explanatory variable in accounting for different ways of procuring daily sustenance.

De la lipofobia al lipofobismo: imágenes y experiencias en torno de la obesidad / From lipophobia to lipophobism: images and experiences in obesity

Mediante un estudio etnográfico en la red asistencial de Cataluña (España), se analizan las experiencias y representaciones sobre la gordura entre profesionales de la salud y jóvenes diagnosticados de obesidad. Se plantea que el rechazo hacia las personas gordas ha aumentando, en coincidencia no sólo con la reprobación moral del exceso (corporal o alimentario) o con la mercantilización de la delgadez y la salud, sino con la reciente definición de la obesidad en tanto que enfermedad. La concepción biomédica de la obesidad se acompaña de una notable ambivalencia. Si bien las personas gordas son consideradas, por un lado, víctimas de una sociedad permisiva y consumista, por otro, son identificadas como transgresoras de los patrones normativos establecidos para prevenirla –la dieta óptima y el peso normal o saludable– y, en consecuencia, culpables de su enfermedad. En el caso de los jóvenes, mientras que durante la infancia la responsabilidad de estar gordo se fija, primero, en torno de la familia y sus hábitos alimentarios y de actividad física, durante la adolescencia y juventud la culpabilidad se subjetiviza y la causalidad se fija en relación con la adecuación, o no, de las conductas individuales. Las motivaciones no racionales que guían las elecciones alimentarias de los jóvenes, la falta de educación nutricional o el ejercicio regular insuficiente son los argumentos biomédicos más comunes para explicar, de forma reduccionista, el aumento de la obesidad juvenil...

[Eating in a time of "crisis": new health and dietary contexts in Spain]. / Comer en tiempos de "crisis": nuevos contextos alimentarios y de salud en España.

This article analyzes the reasons why food insecurity in Spain must increasingly be understood as lack of access to sufficient food resources to guarantee the survival and wellbeing of part of the population. Using data collected in an ongoing research project, two possible causes for this are explored. First, it is argued that certain positive developments that seemed firmly established, such as recognition of the right to an adequate diet and the leveling out of social differences in food consumption, are now being reversed by the current economic crisis. Second, the analysis focuses on strategies people in precarious circumstances use to obtain food, their relationship to health, and the need to take social inequality into consideration as an explanatory variable in accounting for different ways of procuring daily sustenance.

[Obesity as disease and as social problem]. / La obesidad como enfermedad, la obesidad como problema social.

This text is part of a broader line of study that aims to analyze how and why certain eating habits and bodily practices have become social problems, as is the case with fatness. We will show that the ideas that support the definition of obesity as a chronic and avoidable disease are leading experts and health authorities, and other social workers, to know and to think about its evolution in terms of "global" illness (epidemic) and to consider cultural factors as their main cause (obesogenic environment). Paradoxically, the international and national preventive measures taken are focused on changing individual behavior and, in particular, eating habits. The concepts about the regulation of excess weight and food provide interesting information about a particular understanding of lifestyles and culture and they take into account the current promotion of health patterns.

Qué y cuánto comer: tomando medidas frente a las sociedades obesogénicas / What and how much to eat: taking measures to face the obesogenic societies

Los problemas de salud relacionados con la alimentación se explican, con frecuencia, por razones socioculturales. Este artículo plantea la necesidad de reconsiderar dichas razones en el diagnóstico de empeoramiento de los hábitos alimentarios, ya que se han tipificado como agentes causales desde el fast-food al ocio pasivo, desde la desestructuración familiar al ritmo acelerado de vida, desde la generalización de la calefacción o el transporte mecanizado a la insuficiencia de equipamientos deportivos, desde la publicidad alimentaria a la falta de educación nutricional. Si esgrimirlas como causas no parece tarea difícil, sí lo es demostrarlas. En España, todos estos factores están presentes, pero apenas se sabe si han influido mucho o poco en la alimentación cotidiana, y si dicha influencia ha sido necesariamente negativa. Lo que sí constatamos es que las maneras de comer actuales responden, principalmente, a los constreñimientos sociolaborales, la ruptura de los aprendizajes alimentarios, el reparto del trabajo doméstico y el triunfo de las preferencias individuales. Esto explica, en parte, porqué aun conociendo las recomendaciones nutricionales, ciertas prácticas alimentarias parecen alejarse de la "dieta óptima".

Nutrition health-related problems are frequently explained by socio-cultural reasons. This article states the need to reconsider such reasons in the diagnosis of the worsening of eating habits since some agents have been typified from fast-food to sluggishness, from family collapse to the fast speed of living, from generalization of heating or mechanized transpotation to the insufficiency of sport equipment, from eating publicity to lack of educational nutrition. Although these causes seem to have a simple explanation, it is difficult to prove them. In Spain, all these factors are present, but little is known whether they have influenced or not in the daily eating habits and if such influence has been necessarily negative. What we have proved is that the way of present eating habits responds mainly to social and working problems, the breach of eating learning habits, the division of domestic work and the triumph of individual preferences. This partly explains why, even knowing the nutritional recommendations, certain eating practices seem to be far away from the "perfect diet".

Comer bien, comer mal: la medicalización del comportamiento alimentario / Eating well, eating poorly and the medicalization of eating behavior

En este artículo se analiza el progresivo proceso de medicalización del comportamiento alimentario por el cual una buena parte de los motivos pragmáticos o simbólicos que articulan la selección y el consumo humano de alimentos se ha sustituido por otros de orden nutricional. La normalización dietética se ha concretado, en particular en los contextos de relativa abundancia de alimentos, en torno de la dieta equilibrada, un patrón alimentario basado en la restricción y promoción del consumo de ciertos alimentos y nutrientes -qué y cuánto comer- y en la prescripción de un conjunto de pautas relativas a cómo, cuándo y con quién hacerlo, y cuyos objetivos han sido no sólo regular los cuidados del cuerpo y la salud, sino promover, a su vez, un cierto orden social y ético.

This article describes how the progressive process of medicalization of food is inscribed within a biomedical logic that attempts to substitute many of the economic, adaptative and symbolic reasons that have ethnographically and historically conditioned eating habits in all cultures, exclusively for reasons of a dietetic nature. According to this logic, most of the population of modern societies does not know how to eat because they are victims of or have been made ill by the current profusion of food. They must, therefore, learn how to eat well, which in terms of eating practices means eating a little of everything, in moderation and in a balanced way. The main aim of current nutritional education is to (re)establish a supposed dietetic normality as far as food consumed, quantities, number of intakes and meal structures are concerned.

[Eating well, eating poorly and the medicalization of eating behavior]. / Comer bien, comer mal: la medicalización del comportamiento alimentario.

This article describes how the progressive process of medicalization of food is inscribed within a biomedical logic that attempts to substitute many of the economic, adaptative and symbolic reasons that have ethnographically and historically conditioned eating habits in all cultures, exclusively for reasons of a dietetic nature. According to this logic, most of the population of modern societies does not know how to eat because they are victims of or have been made ill by the current profusion of food. They must, therefore, learn how to eat well, which in terms of eating practices means eating a little of everything, in moderation and in a balanced way. The main aim of current nutritional education is to (re)establish a supposed dietetic normality as far as food consumed, quantities, number of intakes and meal structures are concerned.