A Review of Behavioral Factors Affecting Obesity and Control Them

Obesity is one of the chronic diseases and health problems in all countries, which is related to behavioral factors. New studies show that food consumption and lifestyle patterns that lead to obesity are largely influenced by factors such as social networks, communication with family and friends, media, etc.

Methods and Materials: 

In this review article, to find documents related to the topic of the article, the author systematically reviewed the published background on the factors affecting obesity and the methods used in weight loss, and related studies in PubMed, Medline, Elsevier, google scholar IranDoc, Magiran, SID were used using related keywords such as: obesity, overweight, effective factors, in Farsi and obesity, overweight, determinant in English.

The results of the review of various published studies show that the behavioral factors affecting obesity are divided into three levels: individual, family and social. Effective factors at the individual level include religious beliefs, lifestyle, media and game consumption, education level, and food attitude. At the family level, it includes mother's employment, social support and family. At the community level, it includes social networks, modern culture, capitalism, school, physical environment of society, network of social relations and friends, social comparison, social class and social welfare. Strategies to control social factors affecting obesity at three individual levels (health belief-behavior model), family level (family-centered therapy, lifestyle modification in a health-oriented way) and community level (health-oriented space creation and advertising, community action, network-mediated control social activities, health promotion program, media and health culture, culture-oriented control measures and social marketing method).

According to the results, knowing the factors affecting obesity and using methods to control them is an effective solution in reducing overweight and obesity in the individual and social dimension.