Urie Bronfenbrenner Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity could be examined using Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (EST). In 1979, developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner developed the Ecological Systems Model to explain how a child’s direct and indirect interactions with the people, places and things around them connect and influence their lives (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). “Bronfenbrenner (1979) described the topology of the ecological environment as ‘a nested arrangement of structures, each contained within the next’, which must be examined as an interdependent whole to fully understand the forces surrounding a developing individual (p. 22). His initial articulation of EST identified four such structures, or systems—the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and
Factors such as family, friends, school, public policy, and socio-cultural views could all play a role in the child’s obesity. Utilizing Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory to explain childhood obesity may give clearer insight into understanding and helping to prevent this epidemic. For example, an obese child’s microsystem contains their immediate family and looks at the child’s role in the family, as son/daughter and/or brother/sister. The child relies on his/her family to provide basic human necessities such as food and love and learns many habits and behaviors from immediate family members. Perhaps the child is observing poor eating habits (i.e. not eating fruits, vegetables, protein, drinking water etc.) and a lack of exercise from his/her family members. The child’s mesosystem contains interactions between their school and home. Perhaps the location of the child’s school is not accessible by walking or riding a bike from home, which could potentially provide exercise for the child. The child’s exosystem contains public policy on government funded school lunch programs that the child relies on to eat lunch at school. These policies must take into account the types and quality of food distributed to schools for consumption by children. The policies must also take into account affordability for families. Affordability and access to nutritional foods are key components to providing a healthy exosystem for the child. The child’s macrosystem contains the longitudinal affects of the child’s food consumption at school provided by governmental programs and the physical and emotional consequences that the food has on the child. Childhood obesity could be caused by many different factors and is difficult to contribute to one factor alone. Bronfenbrenner’s belief that ecological systems influence a child’s development could contribute to the understanding of childhood obesity