Abstract
A novel framework for modelling trends in obesity is presented. The framework, integrating both Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs) and social networks, is applied to the problem of obesity prevention using knowledge shared through social connections. The capability of FCMs to handle a large number of relevant factors is used here to preserve domain expertise in the model. Model details and design decisions are presented along with results that suggest that the type of social network structure impacts the effectiveness of knowledge transfer.
Research funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MT-10574). We thank the MoCSSy Program for providing facilities.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Institute for Health Information: Obesity in Canada (2011)
Ogden, C., Carroll, M.: Prevalence of overweight, obesity, and extreme obesity among adults: United-states, trends 1960–1962 through 2007–2008. National Center for Health, Statistics (June 2010)
Levi, J., Vinter, S., Richardson, L., Laurent, R.S., Segal, L.: F as in fat: how obesity policies are failing in america. Trust for America’s health. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (July 2008)
Finegood, D.: The complex systems science of obesity. In: The oxford handbook of the social science of, obesity, pp. 208–236 (2011)
Kumanyika, S., Parker, L., Sim, L., (eds.): Defining the problem: the importance of taking a systems perspective. In: Bridging the evidence gap in obesity prevention: a framework to inform decision making. The national academies press (2010)
Kolata, G.: Find yourself packing it on? blame friends. The New York Times (July 2007)
Thompson, C.: Are your friends making you fat? The New York Times (September 2009)
Christakis, N.A., Fowler, J.H.: The spread of obesity in a large social network over 32 years. N. Engl. J. Med. 357(4), 370–379 (July 2007)
Hammond, R.A.: Social influence and obesity. Curr. Opin. Endocrinol. Diabetes Obes. 17, 467–471 (2010)
Smith, K., Christakis, N.: Social networks and health. Ann. Rev. Soc. 34, 405–429 (2008)
Rush, W., Biltz, G., Pantelidis, L., Kim, L., Ogata, C., Muneichi, S.: An exploration of the influence of health related risk factors using cellular automata. Tech. rep (New England Complex Systems Institute) (2003)
Bahr, D., Browning, R., Wyatt, H., Hill, J.: Exploiting social networks to mitigate the obesity epidemic. Obesity 17(4), 723–728 (2009)
Giabbanelli, P.J., Alimadad, A., Dabbaghian, V., Finegood, D.T.: Modeling the influence of social networks and environment on energy balance and obesity. Obes. Rev. 11(Suppl. 1), 65 (2010)
Giabbanelli, P.J., Alimadad, A., Dabbaghian, V., Finegood, D.T.: Modeling the influence of social networks and environment on energy balance and obesity. J. Comput. Sci. 3, 17–27 (2012)
Ruths, D.: Social network modeling of lifestyle behaviors and obesity. In: 2nd National Obesity Summit (2011)
Karanfil, O., Moore, T., Finley, P., Brown, T., Zagonel, A., Glass, R.: A multi-scale paradigm to design policy options for obesity prevention: exploring the integration of individual-based modeling and system dynamics. In: Proceedings of the 29th International Conference of the System Dynamics Society (June 2011)
Hill, A.: Social and psychological factors in obesity. In: Obesity: Science to Practice, pp. 347–366. Wiley-Blackwell (2009)
Giabbanelli, P.J., Tornsney-Weir, T., Mago., V.K.: A fuzzy cognitive map of the psychosocial determinants of obesity. Appl. Soft Syst. 12(12):3711–3724 (2012)
Giabbanelli, P.J.: A novel framework for complex networks and chronic diseases. In: Proceedings of the third workshop on complex networks (2012)
Pratt, S.F., Giabbanelli, P.J., Jackson, P., Mago, V.K.: Rebel with many causes: a computational model of insurgency. In: Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics (2012)
Giles, B., Findlay, C., Haas, G., LaFrance, B., Laughing, W., Pembleton, S.: Integrating conventional science and aboriginal perspectives on diabetes using fuzzy cognitive maps. Soc Sci Med 64(3), 562–576 (2007)
Mago, V., Morden, H., Fritz, C., Wu, T., Namazi, S., Geranmayeh, P., Chattopadhyay, R., Dabbaghian, V.: Analyzing the impact of social factors on homelessness: A fuzzy cognitive map approach. BMC Med. Inform. Decis. Mak. (2013)
Tsadiras, A.K., Kouskouvelis, I., Margaritis, K.G.: Using fuzzy cognitive maps as a decision support system for political decisions. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2563, 291–301 (2003)
Neocleous, C.C., Schizas, C.N.: Application of fuzzy cognitive maps to the political-economic problem of cyprus. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Fuzzy Sets and Soft Computing in Economics and, Finance, pp. 340–349 (2004)
Glykas, M., (ed.): Fuzzy cognitive maps: advances in theory, methodologies, tools and applications. Studies in fuzziness and soft Computing. Springer (2010)
Li, Z.: Introduction. In: Fuzzy chaotic systems, pp. 1–11. Springer (2006)
Edmonds, B., Moss, S.: From kiss to kids—an ’anti-simplistic’ modelling approach. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3415, 130–144 (2005)
Edmonds, B.: Simplicity is not truth-indicative, pp. 02–99. CPM, Report (2002)
Vandenbroeck, I., Goossens, J., Clemens, M.: Foresight tackling obesities: future choices-building the obesity system map. Government Office for Science, UK Governments Foresight Programme (2007)
Giabbanelli, P.J., Torsney-Weir, T., Finegood, D.T.: Building a system dynamics model of individual energy balance related behaviour. Can. J. Diab. 35(2), 201 (2011)
Finegood, D.T., Merth, T.D., Rutter, H.: Implications of the foresight obesity system map for solutions to childhood obesity. Obesity 18, S13–S16 (2010)
Klohe-Lehman, D.M., Freeland-Graves, J., Anderson, E.R., McDowell, T., Clarke, K.K., Hanss-Nuss, H., Cai, G., Puri, D., Milani, T.J.: Nutritionknowledge is associated with greater weight loss in obese and overweight low-income mothers. J. Am. Diet. Assoc. 106(1), 65–65 (2006)
Wardle, J., Parmenter, K., Waller, J.: Nutrition knowledge and food intake. Appetite 34, 269–275 (2000)
McGinn, A.P., Evenson, K.R., Herring, A.H., Huston, S.L., Rodriguez, D.A.: Exploring associations between physical activity and perceived and objective measures of the built environment. J. Pub. Health 84(2), 162–184 (2007)
Schutzer, K.A., Graves, B.S.: Barriers and motivations to exercise in older adults. Preven. Med. 39(5), 1056–1061 (2004)
Statistics Canada: annual demographic estimates: Canada, provinces and territories. Catalogue (91–215-X) (2010)
Booth, F., Chakravarthy, M.: Cost and consequences of sedentary living: New battleground for an old enemy. Presidents Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Research Digest 3(16) (2002).
Food and agriculture organization: human energy requirements. Report, joint FAO/WHO/UNU expert consultation (2004)
Bouchard, C.: The magnitude of the energy imbalance in obesity is generally underestimated. Int. J. Obes. 32, 879–880 (2008)
Swinburn, B.A., Sacks, G., Lo, S.K., Westerterp, K.R., Rush, E.C., Rosenbaum, M., Luke, A., Schoeller, D.A., DeLany, J.P., Butte, N.F., Ravussin, E.: Estimating the changes in energy flux that characterize the rise in obesity prevalence. Am J Clin. Nutr. 89, 1723–1728 (2009)
Stephens, T., Dulberg, C., Joubert, N.: La sante mentale de la population canadienne: une analyse exhaustive. Maladies chroniques au Canada 20(3), 131–140 (1999)
Beck, C.A., Patten, S.B., Williams, J.V., Wang, J.L., Currie, S.R., Maxwell, C.J., El-Guebaly, N.: Antidepressant utilization in canada. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 40, 799–807 (2005)
Statistics Canada: Health indicator profile, two year period estimates, by age group and sex, canada, provinces, territories, health regions, (2011 boundaries) and peer groups. CANSIM Table 105–0502, (2011)
MacLellan, D.L., Taylor, J.P., Til, L.V., Sweet, L.: Measured weights in pei adults reveal higher than expected obesity rates. Revue canadienne de sante publique 95(3), 174–178 (2004)
Axelrod, R.: The dissemination of culture: a model with local convergence and global polarization. J. Conflict Resolut. 41(2), 203–226 (1997)
Giabbanelli, P.J., Peters, J.G.: Complex networks and epidemics. Technique et Science Informatiques 30, 181–212 (2011)
Newman, M.E.J.: The structure and function of complex networks. SIAM Rev. 45(2), 167–256 (2003)
Li, L., Alderson, D., Tanaka, R., Doyle, J.C., Willinger, W.: Towards a theory of scale-free graphs: Definition, properties, and implications (extended version) (Oct 2005)
Erdos, P., Renyi, A.: On random graphs i. Publicationes Mathematicae 6, 290–297 (1959)
Comellas, F., Miralles, A.: Modeling complex networks with self-similar outerplanar unclustered graphs. Physica A: Stat. Mech. Appl. 388, 2227–2233 (2009)
Giabbanelli, P.: The small-world property in networks growing by active edges. Adv. Complex Syst. 14(6), 853–869 (2011)
Giabbanelli, P.J.: Self-improving immunization policies for complex networks. Masters thesis, Simon Fraser University (2009)
Barriere, L., Comellas, F., Dalfo, C.: Deterministic hierarchical networks. Preprint Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (2006)
Boero, R., Squazzoni, F.: Does empirical embeddedness matter? methodological issues on agent-based models for analytical social science. J. Artif. Soc. Soc. Simul. 8(4) (2005)
Schnettler, S.: A structured overview of 50 years of small-world research. Soc. Netw. 21, 165–178 (2009)
McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., Cook, J.M.: Birds of a feather: homophily in social networks. Annu Rev Sociol 27, 415–444 (2001)
Sheeran, P.: Intention-behavior relations: a conceptual and empirical review. Eur Rev. Soc. Psychol. 12(1), 1–36 (2002)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Giabbanelli, P.J., Jackson, P.J., Finegood, D.T. (2014). Modelling the Joint Effect of Social Determinants and Peers on Obesity Among Canadian Adults. In: Dabbaghian, V., Mago, V. (eds) Theories and Simulations of Complex Social Systems. Intelligent Systems Reference Library, vol 52. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39149-1_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39149-1_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-39148-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-39149-1
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)