Frameworks of food environments: their scopes and perspectives

Abstract

The study of chronic non-communicable diseases has gone from having a biomedical approach which was emphasized in epidemiological models proposed before the 1970s. After the 1970s, emphasis has been placed on the study of environments as part of the determinants of health. The study of environments has seen the need to focus on specific topics. This is the case of food environments. Food environments have been associated with nutritional health outcomes. For the explanation of food environments, the exposition of the variables and scope that compose them, there have been various proposals for explanatory models. Through this work, the elements and dimensions of the INFORMAS model, Retail Food Environment, Domains of the Food Environment Model, FAO Model, about Urbanization and food security, Organizational Food Environment Model, Types of Food Environment Model and The Innocenti Framework on Food Systems for Children and Adolescents, considering in each of them the elements and dimensions of the food environment, as well as the perspectives from which the concept of food environment is understood.

Keywords

• food environment
• models
• dimensions
• definition