Home Food Environment and Obesity Prevention

The home food environment encompasses the array of foods present in the household, the routines and practices surrounding their procurement and preparation, and the behavioural norms modelled by caregivers. These factors interact to shape dietary patterns, energy intake and weight trajectories across the life course. A health-promoting home environment typically features frequent availability of fruits, vegetables and minimally processed foods, limited presence of energy-dense snacks and sugary beverages, regular family mealtimes and positive parental role-modelling of balanced eating. Interventions that enhance food literacy, streamline meal planning and address socioeconomic constraints have demonstrated efficacy in improving dietary quality and preventing excess weight gain, particularly in vulnerable or low-income families. The global significance of this area lies in its potential to mitigate the rising prevalence of obesity through relatively low-cost, domestic strategies that can be tailored to diverse cultural and socioeconomic contexts.

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Home Food Environment and Obesity Prevention publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in home food environment and obesity prevention across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Home food environment: The physical and social context within a household that influences dietary behaviours, including food availability, accessibility and parental practices.

Body mass index (BMI): A measure of body fat based on weight relative to height squared, used to categorise underweight, healthy weight, overweight and obesity.

Parental role-modelling: The demonstration of eating behaviours by caregivers that children observe and are likely to adopt.

Socioeconomic status (SES): A composite measure of an individual’s or family’s economic and social position, often based on income, education and occupation.

References

1. A Scoping Review of Household Factors Contributing to Dietary Quality and Food Security in Low-Income Households with School-Age Children in the United States. Advances in Nutrition (2023).
2. Different Dimensions of the Home Food Environment May Be Associated with the Body Mass Index of Older Adults: A Cross-Sectional Survey Conducted in Beijing, China. Nutrients (2024).
3. Associations between socioeconomic status, home food availability, parental role-modeling, and children’s fruit and vegetable consumption: a mediation analysis. BMC Public Health (2023).