Human Ecological Model Research Articles

Mental Health and Relational Needs of Cambodian Refugees after Four Decades of Resettlement in the United States: An Ethnographic Needs Assessment.

The United States has a long history of welcoming refugees fleeing persecution, organized violence, and war. However, the welcome often does not come with adequate immigration infrastructure support necessary to rebuild life and promote family well-being. Approximately 157,000 Cambodians were accepted to resettle in the U.S. between 1975 and 1994 due to the countrywide genocide. Upon resettlement, Cambodians were placed in impoverished neighborhoods with little resources to heal and rebuild. The purpose of this study, grounded in a Human Ecological Model and guided by Critical Ethnography principles, was to conduct a formal needs assessment of Cambodian refugee families across the United States. Eighteen professionals were interviewed virtually in Khmer and/or English. The data were analyzed using the Developmental Research Sequence. The results emphasized a critical need to address mental health complications resulting from untreated mental health disorders such as posttraumatic stress, depression, anxiety-related disorders, and complicated grief, across generations. Severe disruptions in family relationships (i.e., parent-child and couple relationships) were also reported along with substance abuse in the absence of access to culturally responsive mental health treatments. Findings suggest the need for culturally tailored multilevel interventions to effectively address mental health and relational challenges of multigenerational Cambodian families.

Decomposing Neighbourhood (In)Stability: The Structural Determinants of Turnover and Implications for Neighbourhood Crime

Abstract While the human ecological model views neighbourhood instability as a function of household-level decisions, the present study draws on a political economy of place perspective to highlight how the profit-seeking interests of outside actors shapes instability, with consequences for neighbourhood crime. Using data on neighbourhoods in Los Angeles County from 2007 to 2013, I decompose levels of stability according to housing dynamics (displacement, development, changing rents, sales, low-income units), and assess their direct and indirect association with violent and property crime. I find that, over a 7-year period, poorer neighbourhoods are more vulnerable to these exchange-value pressures, stability is more consequential to crime in high-poverty neighbourhoods, and certain housing dynamics are associated with increasing crime through their detrimental effect on renter stability.

Health equity and wellbeing among older people's caregivers in New Zealand during COVID-19: Protocol for a qualitative study.

Knowledge of the challenges unpaid caregivers faced providing care to older people during the COVID-19 pandemic is limited. Challenges may be especially pronounced for those experiencing inequitable access to health and social care. This participatory action research study, located in New Zealand, has four main objectives, (i) to understand the challenges and rewards associated with caregiving to older care recipients during the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions; (ii) to map and collate resources developed (or mobilised) by organisations during the pandemic; (iii) to co-produce policy recommendations, identify useful caregiver resources and practices, prioritise unmet needs (challenges); and, (iv) to use project results in knowledge translation, in order to improve caregivers access to resources, and raise the profile and recognition of caregivers contribution to society. Māori, Pacific and rural-dwelling caregivers to 30 older care-recipients, and 30 representatives from organisations supporting caregivers in New Zealand will be interviewed. Combining data from the interviews and caregivers letters (from an archive of older people's pandemic experiences), framework analysis will be used to examine the interrelated systems of the human ecological model and the impact on caregiving experiences during the pandemic. Resources that service providers had created or used for caregivers and older people will be collated and categorised. Through co-production with caregivers and community partners we will produce three short films describing caregivers' pandemic experiences; identify a suite of resources for caregivers to use in future events requiring self-isolation, and in everyday life; and generate ideas to address unresolved issues.

An integrated approach of Ecological Footprint (EF) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) in human ecology: A base for planning toward sustainability.

Environmental challenges to natural resources have been attributed to human behavior and traditional agricultural production techniques. Natural resource degradation in agriculture has always been a prime concern in agro ecological research and sustainability analysis. There are many techniques for assessing environmental performance; one of which, ecological footprint (EF), assesses human pressure on the environment and natural resources. The main purpose of this study was calculation of ecological indices including biocapacity (BC) and EF of rural areas of Fars province of Iran. The study was accomplished using survey and structured interviews consisting of three main questionnaires in two different steps. Different agricultural stakeholders, including farmers (for the first step) as well as the policymakers, extension managers and authorities (for the second step) were interviewed. Based on multi-stage stratified random sampling, 50 villages and 423 farmers were selected. Face validity and reliability of the questionnaires were assessed by a panel of specialists as well as conducting a pilot study, respectively. The paradigmatic perspectives of agricultural policy makers and managers (22 individuals) were also analyzed using another specific questionnaire by Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). Findings revealed that most of the studied villages faced a critical environmental condition due to the results of ecological indicator which was calculated in the study. According to the four main components of human ecology (POET model) including Population, Organization, Environment and Technology, village groups that differed in terms of sustainability level also showed significantly differences due to population, social participation, use of green technologies and attitude towards diverse environmental management paradigms. The causal model also revealed that population, green technology, social participation and attitude toward frontier economics, which were in accordance with the elements of human ecology model, were the main factors affecting the ecological index. Finally, AHP results determined the dominant economic perspectives of agricultural authorities. A paradigm shift toward the comprehensive paradigm of eco-development plus consideration of the results of the ecological indicator calculation as the base of agricultural planning at the local level were recommended.

COVID-19 Protective Behaviors: The Role of Living Arrangements and Localities.

Objectives:Guided by the human-ecological model, we aimed to identify contextual factors related to protective behaviors during the COVID-19 outbreak.Method:Data are based on a nationally representative survey of adults aged 50+ in Israel during the COVID-19 outbreak (N = 1,019). Regression models predicted three behaviors: using hand sanitizers and masks, stocking up food, and avoiding social meetings. The independent variables were living arrangements (microsystems) and type of localities (macrosystems).Results:Participants who lived alone or lived in rural localities were less likely to adopt protective measures.Conclusion:Policy makers should pay particular attention to adults who live alone or live in rural areas as they might be less likely to adopt protective behaviors and face higher health risks during the pandemic.

Healthy Places for Children: The Critical Role of Engagement, Common Vision, and Collaboration.

Planning plays a critical role in promoting healthy communities for children. We conducted a national survey of United States (US) cities and counties in 2019 and found only half of the 1312 responding communities report they give attention to the needs of children in their community plans. Those that do, provide more services and have more child-friendly zoning codes. We use a human ecological framework to build structural equation models of child-friendly zoning and services. We find communities with more engagement of families with children and youth and a common vision across generational, race, and ethnic lines report higher levels of child-friendly zoning and services. Collaboration between health providers and schools builds trust and leads to more services. However, child-friendly zoning is lower in communities with higher child poverty, and in suburbs and rural areas. Our results support a dynamic human ecological model where the processes of collaboration, inclusion, and engagement are key to creating healthy places for children. These processes may be especially important in addressing the unique challenges of suburban and rural communities.

The impact of energy price on CO2 emissions in China: A spatial econometric analysis

Excessive greenhouse gas emissions pose a global environmental concern. This paper examines the impact of energy price on China's CO2 emissions based on an extended STIRPAT (Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology) structural human ecology model. We utilize Chinese provincial data from 2002 to 2016 and apply the spatial panel data techniques to explicitly consider spatial correlations and spillover effects between observations. Our results show that energy price has a significant negative impact on China's CO2 emissions after controlling for other economic and energy market factors and spatial correlations of these variables. We identify a significant direct impact of the focal province's price change on CO2 emissions and an indirect effect exerted by energy price changes in adjacent provinces. Such spatial spillover effects are also observed in other determinants identified in the extended STIRPAT model. We also document a path dependent pattern in China's provincial CO2 emissions with last period CO2 emissions influencing the current CO2 emission levels. Our results show that the negative impact of energy price on CO2 emissions remains qualitatively the same after incorporating the influence of previous period CO2 emissions. Our results are also robust to the inclusion of lagged energy price measures, alternative spatial economic models, and alternative spatial weight matrices. Overall, our paper highlights the role of energy market in curbing CO2 emissions and promoting sustainable economic development.

The role of electronic human resource management in diverse workforce efficiency

Orientation: Diversity management, focusing on developing and appreciating diverse ideas and building relations among diverse employees, and new electronic human resource management (e-HRM) approaches to employees, often leave employees feeling disrespected and indignant. Thus, instead of human resource practitioners, harnessing the strategic role of e-HRM towards value creation for people and organisation, e-HRM has taken a dehumanising turn.Research purpose: This research questioned how technological changes affecting e-HRM could optimise and enable diversity.Motivation for the study: Current literature does not adequately address this e-HRM dilemma impacting on HRM.Research approach/design and method: A qualitative exploratory case study was used to determine how and to what extent the application of e-HRM technology implementation impacted on diversity management. The human niche and ecological model theories help explain the nature of employees’ interactional relationships and coping mechanisms when intervening factors such as e-HRM are introduced respectively.Main findings: The research revealed disconnectedness between e-HRM, individuals and groups, affecting efficiency. Further research is required to improve humanistic approaches for e-HRM implementations.Practical/managerial implications: Application of human niche theory may guide a more participative approach from the onset. Leaders and managers who follow a pure transactional approach may fuel employee isolationism and hamper diversity management through technology in e-HRM.Contribution/value-add: Our findings provide insight into the unintended consequences of diversity. We indicated how e-HRM systems can lead to relational breakdown in a developing country context. Technology should be integrated in managing diversity, and not just focused on operational efficiencies.

A call for ecologically-based teacher-parent communication skills training in pre-service teacher education programmes

ABSTRACT Communication plays a critical role in building and supporting healthy interpersonal relationships. American teacher development standards recognise this and outline the importance of communication in relationship-building with both parent and student to create a successful learning environment. However, although available research points to the importance of a healthy teacher-parent relationship for the academic success of the student, few teachers in the United States have received the appropriate pre-service training on effective ways to communicate with parents. Not only could this impede the establishment of working relationships between the school and home environments, but this lack of training has also been shown to contribute to negative impacts on student learning. In this theoretical paper, the authors examine current literature on the value of communication training for teachers, barriers to teacher-parent communication commonly encountered, and current teacher-parent communication practices. The authors propose that a human ecological model be used as a foundation for establishing teacher training for effective communication with parents and discuss how this lens could address commonly encountered communication barriers.

Social Structure Facilitated the Evolution of Care-giving as a Strategy for Disease Control in the Human Lineage

Humans are the only species to have evolved cooperative care-giving as a strategy for disease control. A synthesis of evidence from the fossil record, paleogenomics, human ecology, and disease transmission models, suggests that care-giving for the diseased evolved as part of the unique suite of cognitive and socio-cultural specializations that are attributed to the genus Homo. Here we demonstrate that the evolution of hominin social structure enabled the evolution of care-giving for the diseased. Using agent-based modeling, we simulate the evolution of care-giving in hominin networks derived from a basal primate social system and the three leading hypotheses of ancestral human social organization, each of which would have had to deal with the elevated disease spread associated with care-giving. We show that (1) care-giving is an evolutionarily stable strategy in kin-based cooperatively breeding groups, (2) care-giving can become established in small, low density groups, similar to communities that existed before the increases in community size and density that are associated with the advent of agriculture in the Neolithic, and (3) once established, care-giving became a successful method of disease control across social systems, even as community sizes and densities increased. We conclude that care-giving enabled hominins to suppress disease spread as social complexity, and thus socially-transmitted disease risk, increased.

Imagining the Good Place: Public Services and Family Strategies in Rural Ecuador

AbstractRecent scholarship seeks to lift up alternatives to neoliberalism that build community well‐being and a sense of place. This study follows three families in a rural highland Ecuadorean community and their investments in human capital, family businesses, and migration. It applies a human ecological model to show how complex ideologies around community well‐being, such as buen vivir (living well), are articulated at the macroscale and experienced at the meso‐ and microscales through investments in public services and their impact on rural families. Our collaborative ethnography elevates families’ voices to show how they both experience and envision community well‐being. We incorporate human capabilities and a community capitals framework to show how investments and ideologies flow across scales. We highlight the role of local social capital and regional territorial dynamics that support both economic growth and social inclusion. Our collaborative ethnography illustrates how rural residents imagine the good place (buen lugar), a resilient foundation from which they can build their family strategies. However, we find that lack of political and financial investment truncates active citizenship at the local scale, limiting the ability to achieve the full promise of buen vivir.

A Sequential Canonical Cascade Model of Social Biogeography: Plants, Parasites, and People

This sequential canonical cascade model of social biogeography is an extension of an integrated model of human cognitive ecology (Cabeza de Baca and Figueredo Intelligence 47:63–71, 2014) that predicted state-level life history and cognitive abilities in Mexico. We integrate such population-level factors by utilizing a sample of 66 recognized national polities for which sufficiently complete information was available on all the variables modeled. These national polities were limited to those found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The Americas and Australia were excluded to avoid sampling parts of the world that had recently undergone massive colonizations by human and nonhuman animals and plants from other zoogeographic zones, which might have disrupted the evolutionarily expected relations between physical, community, and social human ecologies. Data were obtained from national census databases and international organizations, and only national polities with complete data were analyzed, meaning that no missing data were imputed based on values from nearby or otherwise similar polities. This integrated model of social biogeography proposes that abiotic climatic factors in the physical ecology as well as biotic factors in the community ecology produce variations in subsistence and natural resources that then impact biometric markers of life history, triggering changes in social equality, within-group and between-group peace, sexual equality, macroeconomic diversification, and human capital. These effects, in turn, ultimately produce changes in brain volume and aggregate cognitive abilities. The final equation in our cascade model explains 88 % of the variance in aggregate cognitive abilities by supplying more detailed information on socioecological conditions than previous work.

Individual and Social Predictors of Prosocial Behavior among Chinese Adolescents in Hong Kong.

Based on the human ecological model, this study hypothesized that individual competence in empathy, prosocial moral reasoning, and social influence from parents, peers, and school are the key determinants of prosocial behavior among Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong. We recruited a sample of high school students who engaged in volunteering activities regularly (N = 580). They completed a self-administrated questionnaire designed to measure prosocial behavior and its hypothesized predictors using a number of standardized instruments. The results of multiple regression show that social influence factors, including peer, school, and parent influence, are strong predictors of helping intention and prosocial behavior, while individual competence factors like empathy and prosocial moral reasoning are not. Male participants had higher empathy scores and helping intention than females, perceived their parents as more helpful, and their schools as more supportive of prosocial behavior. However, the significant predictors of prosocial behavior and helping intention were similar across gender. The findings indicate that social influence is strongly linked to prosocial behavior. This implies that socialization and social support for prosocial norms and behavior can exert a powerful influence on the behavior of young people in a Chinese population.

Problematizing the Discourse: A Quantitative Analysis of African American High School Students’ Academic Aspirations and Motivation to Excel

The influence of environmental and contextual factors on human development and behaviors among adolescents is well documented in the literature. The discourse surrounding urban African American high school students has largely failed to take into consideration how these factors relate to the postsecondary academic aspirations and motivations, performance, and success of these students. Stewart, Stewart, and Simons (2007) assessed the extent to which the neighborhood context predicts the college-going aspirations of African American youth and found that living in a disadvantaged neighborhood context lowers, albeit slightly, the college aspirations of this group. However, these authors fail to place these findings in a broader analysis of the relationship between aspirations and the contextual factors that impact on and manifest in the neighborhood context, particularly in low-income urban communities. Using an ecological perspective of development in this study, the authors carefully interrogate the relationship between urban African American high school students' academic aspirations and motivations regarding college and the various environmental and contextual factors that impact the communities, families, and peer networks of which they are a part. The work is situated within Bronfenbrenner's (1977 1994, 1999; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) model of human ecology, process-person-context-time (or PPCT). This ecological model centralizes the processes particular persons undergo within certain contexts and provides a framework for exploring how contexts ultimately facilitate or inhibit development over time.To date, ecological perspectives have been used extensively in studies on college students: academic success of first-generation ethnic minority students (Dennis, Phinney, & Chuateco, 2005); campus ecology (Dey & Hurtado, 1995); and, peer counseling and financial aid (Tierney & Venegas, 2006) to name a few. Additionally, studies on child development and social and emotional learning (Durlak et al., 2011), bullying and victimization (Cook et al., 2010), mentoring in the workplace (Chandler, Kram, & Yip, 2011), and classroom ecology and misbehavior (Supaporn, Dodds, & Griffin, 2003) have employed an ecological lens.The authors incorporate this theoretical lens in their work to interrogate the relationship between neoliberalism, school reform policies and practices, familial and social networks and the academic aspirations and motivations of urban African American high school students in California. The discussion of human ecology starts at the macrosystems level (e.g., neoliberalism) and at the exosystems level (e.g., current education reform policies and practices) to frame the context of urban communities in California. The quantitative analysis is limited to the microsystems level (e.g., family, peer and co-curricular determinants) where the authors assess the predictive relationship between these contextual factors and students' postsecondary academic aspirations and motivations.The aim of this study is to explore the extent to which family and social determinants, as well as co-curricular engagement, predict urban African American adolescents' personal determinants of academic success. For the purposes of this study, the authors conceptualize family determinants as the expectations a student's family has for him or her regarding secondary and postsecondary educational attainment, experiences with housing displacement, and low educational attainment among siblings. Furthermore, peer relationships, peer expectations and peer support in the schooling process is identified as positive peer support and more broadly, as a measure of social determinants. The outcome variable, personal determinants of academic success, is defined as a student's academic motivation, future aspirations, and personal expectations of academic success. The following questions guide this research:* What is the relationship between family determinants, co-curricular engagement, social determinants and urban African American students' personal determinants of academic success? …

A New Model for Coastal Resource Productivity and Sea‐Level Change: The Role of Physical Sedimentary Processes in Assessing the Archaeological Potential of Submerged Landscapes from the Northwest Australian Continental Shelf

Existing models of coastal occupation, in one form or another, embrace the assumption that changes in mean sea level were the prime driver for shifts in coastal resource productivity of consequence to coastal foragers. Focusing on the North West Shelf of Australia, this paper considers the role of physical sedimentary processes in understanding both past coastal resource productivity and the archaeology of drowned coastal landscapes. From a review of up‐to‐date literature on sea‐level related coastal formation process related to the North West Shelf, we describe the complex interplay of sea‐level change and sedimentary processes in determining (i) coastal resource availability, and (ii) archaeological site preservation potential through time. We argue that human behavioral models that have been linked solely to changes in sea level change from ca. 45 ka onward along the Australia continental shelf have inadequately accounted for local sedimentary regimes. It is not past sea‐level per se, which is of relevance to coastal productivity and human behavioral ecology models but changes in tidal regimes, coastal configurations and sedimentation. We conclude that our understanding of maritime adaptations for Sahul (Greater Australia) remain incomplete without investigating former coastlines and archaeological information that now lies submerged offshore.

Human ecology and gender: a framework to discover natural and cultural resources with climate change accommodation

Based on the human ecological pyramid described by Robert Ezra Park, the founder of Human Ecology at Chicago School of Sociology around 1920 (Park 1952; visualized by Teherani-Krönner 1992), Duncan developed his model for comprehensive research on changes in human societies. He believed that scientific analysis had to include the interplay and interaction of the following components: population (P), organization (O), environment (E) and technology (T). This research frame – POET - became known as the Ecological Complex visualized as a rhombus (Duncan 1959; Teherani-Krönner 1992; Teherani-Krönner 2014). Such an approach needs inter- and trans-disciplinary research methodologies. Combining this human ecological model with theoretical and conceptual approaches in gender studies (Boserup 1970, Teherani-Krönner 2014) will open a new perspective to gender sensitive environmental researches. As the UNDP has stated: “human development if not engendered, is endangered”. This simple but far-reaching message of Human Development Report (UNDP 1995) should be taken more seriously into account in theoretical and practical work (gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting). The gender gap (FAO 2011) will be a roadblock to sustainable environmental development (Jacobson 1992) under climate change conditions. Therefore the POET model needs to be engendered. The paper will present a new concept and a methodological framework to discover natural and cultural resources with regard to climate change accommodation.
 Trên cơ sở tháp sinh thái nhân văn có lồng ghép giới được xây dựng bởi Robert Ezra Park, nhà sáng lập ngành học về sinh thái nhân văn tại trường Khoa học xã hội Chicago vào khoảng năm 1920 (Park 1952; do Teherani-Krönner thể hiện năm 1992), Duncan đã phát triển một mô hình nghiên cứu toàn diện về sự thay đổi trong xã hội loài người. Ông cho rằng các phân tích khoa học cần phải bao gồm sự tương tác qua lại giữa các thành tố sau: dân số (P), tổ chức (O), môi trường (E), và công nghệ (T). Khung nghiên cứu này được gọi tắt là POET, được biết tới với tên gọi tổ hợp sinh thái, và được thể hiện bằng hình ảnh của một hình thoi (Duncan 1959; Teherani-Krönner 1992; Teherani-Krönner 2014). Cách tiếp cận này cần phải sử dụng các phương pháp nghiên cứu liên ngành và đa ngành. Kết hợp mô hình sinh thái nhân văn với các cách tiếp cận về lý thuyết và định nghĩa trong các nghiên cứu về giới (Boserup 1970, Teherani-Krönner 2014) sẽ mở ra một hướng nghiên cứu mới đối với các nghiên cứu về môi trường có liên quan tới nhạy cảm giới. Tổ chức Phát triển LHQ (UNDP) đã nêu rõ: “Nếu sự phát triển của con người không tính đến vấn đề giới, sự phát triển đó sẽ gặp trở ngại”. Thông điệp đơn giản nhưng hàm chứa này được nêu trong báo cáo: Phát triển con người của UNDP (1995) cần được xem xét một cách nghiêm túc hơn trong lý thuyết và thực tiễn (lồng ghép giới và lập ngân sách có tính đến vấn đề giới). Khoảng cách về giới (FAO 2011) sẽ là một cản trở trên con đường phát triển môi trường bền vững (Jacobson 1992) trong các điều kiện biến đổi khí hậu hiện tại. Do đó, mô hình POET cần được xem xét cả từ góc độ giới. Bài viết đưa ra một khái niệm mới và một khung phương pháp logic nhằm phát hiện các nguồn lực tự nhiên và văn hóa trong bối cảnh biến đổi khí hậu.

The cognitive ecology of Mexico: Climatic and socio-cultural effects on life history strategies and cognitive abilities

The purpose of the present study is to test an integrated model of human ecology, which takes into consideration variables and predictions derived from both life history and social privilege paradigms. Population-level statistics were collected from an assortment of Mexican national agencies on thirty-one Mexican States and the Federal District (N=32). The integrated model of human cognitive ecology specifically described how biodiversity impacts state-level life history strategies and cognitive abilities in Mexico. Results from the sequential canonical cascade analysis supported the three following hypotheses: (1) regional climatic factors affected regional life histories; (2) both regional life histories and climatic factors affected regional levels of human capital; and (3) both regional levels of human capital and regional climatic factors affected regional mean cognitive abilities. The integrated model of human cognitive ecology explained a preponderance of the pooled multivariate variance (V=.66) in cognitive abilities. Implications and future directions within life history and intelligence research are discussed.

Pediatric and Maternal HIV in Texas Border Counties and Urban Area

This paper examines the geography of pediatric HIV, HIV in women, and age at diagnosis of women in the Dallas Fort-Worth metroplex, Houston-Galveston Area, and the colonias of Texas-Mexico border counties using the human ecology model.

Understanding Immigrant College Students: Applying a Developmental Ecology Framework to the Practice of Academic Advising

Immigrant college student populations continue to grow, but the complexity of their unique needs and issues remain relatively unknown. To gain a better understanding of the multiple contextual factors impacting immigrant students from a systems-based approach, I applied Bronfenbrenner's (1977) human ecology framework to the study. Students interact with the environment, including exchanges with academic advisors, that influence student development, success, and retention. In this theory-based essay, I contend that the philosophy of a developmental ecology approach parallels the foundational tenets of developmental academic advising, mainly through an emphasis on context and working with the whole student. I offer strategies for practice and ideas for future application as well as use an adapted human-ecological model to illustrate immigrant issues.

Chubby cheeks and climate change: childhood obesity as a sustainable development issue

AbstractThe rise of obesity is one of today's biggest societal challenges. Indeed, the obesity epidemic is not only impairing individuals' lives, but also societies' sustainability, most notably with regard to the social, the cultural and the economic dimension. Thus, to halt obesity has become a goal in several political sustainability strategies. The focus is on children since their health behaviour is expected to have a strong impact on consumers in adulthood. To fight childhood obesity, the challenge is to develop the ‘right’ policy toolbox. One complicating aspect amongst others is the numerousness of actors involved. To find a policy mix and assess its consequences for all actors, it is essential to understand the underlying mechanisms – the impact of external and internal factors on children's health behaviour. Tools such as regulation, information and education appear to be insufficient to curb this unsustainable consumption behaviour. One promising avenue to strike a new path is to exploit the possibilities of choice architecture as proposed by behavioural economics. The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to develop the conceptual nexus between obesity and sustainable development against the backcloth of obesity and sustainability research; second, based on a human ecological model, to outline selected influencing factors of childhood obesity; and third, to sketch the options of market and consumer policy actors to curb the pandemic.