Obesity Interventions in the Community : Engaged and Participatory Approaches

Obesity is a pervasive global public health concern of utmost priority. Effective and efficient interventions are urgently needed to reverse current trends, especially among children. The past decade has witnessed increasing adoption and implementation of community-engaged and -participatory interventions that employ a bottom-up approach to identifying and realizing sustainable solutions within communities. It is argued herein that community-based approaches are most effective when implemented via a systems perspective that integrates across societal sectors. This approach seizes upon the synergistic effects that result from simultaneously mobilizing community assets at multiple levels. This paper provides an overview of the evolution and theory behind community-engaged, community-participatory, and systems-level interventions, discusses recent findings in the field, offers reflections based on first-hand experience, outlines advances in relevant resources, and lays forth potential and promising directions for future research. It emphasizes the centrality and necessity of community-engaged systems-level interventions in halting and reversing the obesity epidemic.