System dynamics modelling and its implications for childhood obesity prevention: evidence from improving the consumption of portion size and meal frequency

The childhood obesity has rapidly increased, though little is known about theimpact of frequency of meals and portion size on weight and obesity. Theobjective of this study is to compare and to determine the effective strategy forobesity prevention by improving the consumption of portion size and mealfrequency. This study utilised the secondary data obtained from the Health Surveyfor England for the child population aged between 2 to 15 years in United Kingdom. This study combines the different strands of knowledge from nutrition, physicalactivity and body metabolism and synthesizing this knowledge into a systemdynamics model which the model offers unique insights into the cause-and-effectrelationships among the influencing factors. Findings from the simulation analysisdemonstrated that reducing meal frequency is the most effective controllingstrategy for obesity prevention. This is asserted by the fact that the highestreduction in average weight (3.14%-4.5%) and average body mass index(3.14%-4.5%) between 2020 and 2030 was observed by improving mealfrequency. This paper concludes that system dynamics utilised in this study willbe advantageous to guide the food stakeholder to gain insight into the complex ofeating behavior and to experiment with various intervention strategies for obesityprevention