ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the environmental and cultural factors, along with other biobehavioral influences, such as eating frequency, that are all implicated in childhood obesity. The burgeoning rates of childhood obesity in genetically stable populations suggest that an increasingly obesogenic environment is the major driving force behind this epidemic. Fostering the delicate balance between energy intake (EI) and energy expenditure is exceedingly difficult. Discrepancies in the reported relationships between EI and weight status are likely to be due to unquantifiable errors in both self-reported food intake and body composition assessments. The energy density (ED) of foods is a key determinant of overall EI and of body weight regulation. The ED of individual foods is a function of their water content and, to a lesser extent, their fat content; however, there are a number of caveats to the fat content–ED relationship. Children’s food preferences and dietary choices are primarily driven by taste.
