Cargando…

Overweight, obesity, and food consumption in Galapagos, Ecuador: a window on the world

BACKGROUND: In order to understand why rates of overweight and obesity are so high in the Ecuadorian province of Galapagos, this study analyzes changes in household food expenditures and perceptions and practices related to food consumption patterns. Galapagos is understood as an unusual but not uni...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Freire, Wilma B., Waters, William F., Román, Diana, Jiménez, Elisa, Burgos, Estefania, Belmont, Philippe
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6134580/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30208909
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12992-018-0409-y
_version_ 1783354685894164480
author Freire, Wilma B.
Waters, William F.
Román, Diana
Jiménez, Elisa
Burgos, Estefania
Belmont, Philippe
author_facet Freire, Wilma B.
Waters, William F.
Román, Diana
Jiménez, Elisa
Burgos, Estefania
Belmont, Philippe
author_sort Freire, Wilma B.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: In order to understand why rates of overweight and obesity are so high in the Ecuadorian province of Galapagos, this study analyzes changes in household food expenditures and perceptions and practices related to food consumption patterns. Galapagos is understood as an unusual but not unique case because conditions there graphically illustrate trends observed in communities and countries worldwide. A mixed methods approach was employed: a quantitative component was based on expenditures for foods classified according to the NOVA system, and a qualitative component utilized focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and structured observations. RESULTS: Galapagos residents increased consumption of processed and ultra-processed foods and decreased consumption of unprocessed and minimally processed foods. Perceived barriers to healthy diets include price, availability, and quality of fresh produce, as well as easy access to industrialized processed and ultra-processed foods. CONCLUSIONS: Changes in consumption patterns represent both local conditions and global trends; in that sense, the factors that affect Galapagos residents are not unique. Hence, these findings help elucidate processes observed in communities around the world.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6134580
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2018
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-61345802018-09-13 Overweight, obesity, and food consumption in Galapagos, Ecuador: a window on the world Freire, Wilma B. Waters, William F. Román, Diana Jiménez, Elisa Burgos, Estefania Belmont, Philippe Global Health Research BACKGROUND: In order to understand why rates of overweight and obesity are so high in the Ecuadorian province of Galapagos, this study analyzes changes in household food expenditures and perceptions and practices related to food consumption patterns. Galapagos is understood as an unusual but not unique case because conditions there graphically illustrate trends observed in communities and countries worldwide. A mixed methods approach was employed: a quantitative component was based on expenditures for foods classified according to the NOVA system, and a qualitative component utilized focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and structured observations. RESULTS: Galapagos residents increased consumption of processed and ultra-processed foods and decreased consumption of unprocessed and minimally processed foods. Perceived barriers to healthy diets include price, availability, and quality of fresh produce, as well as easy access to industrialized processed and ultra-processed foods. CONCLUSIONS: Changes in consumption patterns represent both local conditions and global trends; in that sense, the factors that affect Galapagos residents are not unique. Hence, these findings help elucidate processes observed in communities around the world. BioMed Central 2018-09-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6134580/ /pubmed/30208909 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12992-018-0409-y Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Freire, Wilma B.
Waters, William F.
Román, Diana
Jiménez, Elisa
Burgos, Estefania
Belmont, Philippe
Overweight, obesity, and food consumption in Galapagos, Ecuador: a window on the world
title Overweight, obesity, and food consumption in Galapagos, Ecuador: a window on the world
title_full Overweight, obesity, and food consumption in Galapagos, Ecuador: a window on the world
title_fullStr Overweight, obesity, and food consumption in Galapagos, Ecuador: a window on the world
title_full_unstemmed Overweight, obesity, and food consumption in Galapagos, Ecuador: a window on the world
title_short Overweight, obesity, and food consumption in Galapagos, Ecuador: a window on the world
title_sort overweight, obesity, and food consumption in galapagos, ecuador: a window on the world
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6134580/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30208909
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12992-018-0409-y
work_keys_str_mv AT freirewilmab overweightobesityandfoodconsumptioningalapagosecuadorawindowontheworld
AT waterswilliamf overweightobesityandfoodconsumptioningalapagosecuadorawindowontheworld
AT romandiana overweightobesityandfoodconsumptioningalapagosecuadorawindowontheworld
AT jimenezelisa overweightobesityandfoodconsumptioningalapagosecuadorawindowontheworld
AT burgosestefania overweightobesityandfoodconsumptioningalapagosecuadorawindowontheworld
AT belmontphilippe overweightobesityandfoodconsumptioningalapagosecuadorawindowontheworld