Towards a biocultural approach: a review of food insecurity, low income, and obesity in the United States

Currently the United States and other industrialized nations are experiencing the stark impact of a global nutrition transition through a radical and national increase in obesity rates. The increasing presentation of this disease, however, is concentrated in food insecure, and low-income populations. Research that has examined the etiology of this correlation has approached this relationship from either a biological approach, or an economic approach. The literature presented by both camps, however, is unable to fully elucidate the presentation of obesity in these populations. Instead this review argues for the integration of these perspectives in a biocultural approach that addresses how structural inequalities work in conjunction with human biological processes, and cultural coping mechanisms to affect national obesity distributions.