Abstract

 Obesity is driven by chronic energy surplus, sedentary lifestyles and environments that promote 
overconsumption of calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods. Alongside pharmacotherapy and lifestyle interventions, 
functional foods enriched with bioactive nutraceuticals are increasingly explored as low-risk, population-wide 
tools for obesity prevention. Yet many promising compounds, including polyphenols, carotenoids, fatty acids 
and peptides, suffer from poor solubility, instability during processing and digestion, low oral bioavailability and 
limited targeting of metabolically relevant tissues. Nanotechnology-based delivery systems offer a way to 
overcome these barriers directly within the food matrix. Nanoengineered functional foods use nanoemulsions, 
nanoliposomes, solid lipid nanoparticles, biopolymer nanogels, nano-complexes and hybrid carriers to protect 
labile nutraceuticals, enhance gastrointestinal bioaccessibility and control their release and absorption. Recent 
work demonstrates that nanostructured systems can significantly increase bioavailability of key anti-obesity 
nutraceuticals such as curcumin, resveratrol and catechins and improve metabolic readouts in preclinical models. 
This review outlines the rationale for nanoengineering in functional foods for obesity prevention, describes 
major nanoencapsulation platforms, highlights representative nanonutraceuticals and smart “personalized” food 
concepts, and discusses safety, regulatory and consumer acceptance issues. Finally, we consider how 
nanostructured delivery systems might integrate into multi-level obesity prevention strategies and what 
evidence is needed for responsible translation from bench to supermarket shelf.