Shift's Obesity System Influence Diagram
I love, love, love this diagram (HT Hugh for the pointer). It’s a visual representation of something I’ve long maintained: obesity is a wicked problem.
One caveat: IMO, the diagram is a tool for looking at obesity from a public health perspective, not from an individual perspective. In fact, one of its flaws is that in order to communicate the many contributing factors, there’s no weighting. Frankly, I’m with Staffan Lindeberg: staying away from Western food (or at least, the highly industrial processed versions of food) may get someone concerned with obesity pretty far down the path towards health.
For more, check out the interactive version of the map, the related resources from the UK’s “Tackling Obesities” Foresight project, and see Chris Kresser’s great take.
I’m glad you’ve found it as interesting as I did. When I first found it I spent hours playing around with it.
Beyond its academic interest, I would argue that it could be a great tool for those designing a fat loss plan either for themselves or someone else (incidentally something I’m considering as a career path), e.g. create a specific action plan around each relevant obstacle/influence listed on the diagram. Better yet, tackle them one by one, starting with food choices where possible, and see how far it gets you before tackling others as necessary.
In any case, I think the diagram is a great way to show that the advice to “just eat paleo” (or, for some, “just eat low carb”) is not enough. It’s a cousin to the “eat less, move more” mantra. And it’s almost akin to advising a poor person to “just make money”.