Obesity is known as a transgenerational vicious cycle and has become a global burden due to its unavoidable complications. Modern approaches to
obesity management often involve the use of
pharmaceutical drugs and surgeries that have been associated with negative side effects. In contrast, natural
antioxidants, such as
flavonoids, have emerged as a promising alternative due to their potential health benefits and minimal side effects. Thus, this narrative review explores the potential protective role of
flavonoids as a natural
antioxidant in managing
obesity. To identify recent in vivo studies on the efficiency of
flavonoids in managing
obesity, a comprehensive search was conducted on Wiley Online Library, Scopus, Nature, and ScienceDirect. The search was limited to the past 10 years; from the search, we identified 31 articles to be further reviewed. Based on the reviewed articles, we concluded that
flavonoids offer novel therapeutic strategies for preventing
obesity and its associated co-morbidities. This is because the appropriate dosage of
flavonoid compounds is able to reduce adipose tissue mass, the formation of intracellular
free radicals, enhance
endogenous antioxidant defences, modulate the redox balance, and reduce inflammatory signalling pathways. Thus, this review provides an insight into the domain of a
natural product therapeutic approach for managing
obesity and recapitulates the transgenerational inheritance of
obesity, the current available treatments to manage
obesity and its side effects,
flavonoids and their sources, the molecular mechanism involved, the modulation of gut microbiota in
obesity, redox balance, and the bioavailability of
flavonoids. In
toto, although
flavonoids show promising positive outcome in managing
obesity, a more comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms responsible for the advantageous impacts of
flavonoids-achieved through translation to clinical trials-would provide a novel approach to inculcating
flavonoids in managing
obesity in the future as this review is limited to animal studies.