Which causal chain most plausibly explains how low food security can contribute to obesity in a community?

Low income limits food budgets → cheaper, energy-dense processed foods are purchased more often → diets become high in calories but low in quality → increased population-level obesity risk.

Because food insecurity and obesity are unrelated phenomena, community obesity rates rise only due to genetic predisposition unrelated to diet quality or price.

Low food security causes immediate starvation across the household → starvation triggers binge-eating behavior that directly produces obesity within days, independent of food availability or diet composition.

Food insecurity forces high-income households to adopt rationing habits that protect them from obesity, so low food security is inversely correlated with weight gain uniformly across all populations.