Obesity and human biology: toward a global perspective

Overweight bodies will soon be the modal human form. In this special issue of American Journal of Human Biology, authors use varied approaches to examine the expansion of obesity globally, particularly what shape variability in people's vulnerability to weight gain and its negative effects. The contributions together highlight how complex pathways between biology and health related to excess weight are strongly medicated, at multiple levels, by both socio-ecological context and life history. A systems approach, which can place human biological and biocultural variation iteratively within the broader contexts of developing and globalizing adiposity, will be a useful next step to informing effective prevention and intervention efforts.