ABSTRACT

Public support for many policies that tackle obesity by changing environments is low. This may reflect commonly held causal beliefs about obesity, namely that it is due to failures of self-control rather than environmental influences. Several studies have sought to increase public support by changing these and similar causal beliefs, with mixed results. The current review is the first systematic synthesis of these studies. Searches of PsycInfo, Medline, Web of Science, Scopus, and Open Grey yielded 20 eligible studies (N = 8977) from 11,776 abstracts. Eligible studies were controlled experiments with an intervention group that communicated information about the environment’s role in obesity, and a measure of support for environment-based obesity policies. The protocol was prospectively registered on PROSPERO. Meta-analyses showed no evidence that communicating information about the environment’s influence on obesity changed policy support or the belief that the environment influences obesity. A likely explanation for this null effect is the ineffectiveness of interventions that were designed to change the belief that the environment influences obesity. The possibility remains, however, that the association observed between beliefs about the causes of obesity and attitudes towards obesity policies is correlational and not causal.

摘要

公众对许多通过改变环境来解决肥胖问题的政策的支持率很低。这可能反映了人们普遍持有的关于肥胖的因果信念，即它是由于自我控制失败而不是环境影响造成的。一些研究试图通过改变这些和类似的因果信念来增加公众支持，但结果好坏参半。本综述是对这些研究的第一次系统综合。对 PsycInfo、Medline、Web of Science、Scopus 和 Open Gray 的搜索产生了 20 项符合条件的研究（N = 8977) 来自 11,776 个摘要。符合条件的研究是与干预组进行的对照实验，该干预组传达有关环境在肥胖中的作用的信息，以及对基于环境的肥胖政策的支持措施。该协议已在 PROSPERO 上前瞻性注册。荟萃分析显示没有证据表明有关环境对肥胖的影响的信息交流改变了政策支持或环境影响肥胖的信念。这种无效效应的一个可能解释是旨在改变环境影响肥胖的信念的干预措施无效。然而，在肥胖原因的信念和对肥胖政策的态度之间观察到的关联仍然存在，这种关联是相关的，而不是因果关系。