Taking on “Big Fat”: The Relative Risks and Benefits of the War Against Obesity

摘要: Most health care ethicists are ill at ease in the world of public ethics where whole community or population is object focus, and main moral tug-of-war between competing values individual freedom social welfare. Nevertheless, they increasingly being pushed into realm to address everyday issues, including overeating. I will first briefly note some health-status health-cost concerns raised by increased incidence overweight obesity among American population. Next, discuss most plausible explanations for Americans’ expanding girth, feminist Susan Bordo’s analysis consumer-capitalism. Then, using a framework developed epidemiologist Geoffrey Rose, relative risks benefits both “high-risk” (clinical) “population” (public health) approach overweight. Finally, conclude that outweigh campaign against obesity.