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Ethical Issues for Public Health Approaches to Obesity

  • Health Services and Programs (SFL Kirk, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Obesity is a major public health concern worldwide. Because individual-level interventions have been unsuccessful at curbing obesity rates, there is an emphasis on public health approaches. In addition to testing the effectiveness of any public health interventions, it is important to consider the ethical implications of these interventions in order to protect the public’s rights and promote overall well-being. In this paper, we review public health approaches to obesity in three broad domains (changes to the socio-communicative environment, changes to the economic environment, and changes to the physical environment/access) and consider the potential ethical issues that arise in each of those domains. We suggest that interventions that target the physical environment/access (making it easier for people to engage in healthy behaviors), that target the entire population (rather than just individuals with obesity), and that focus on health behaviors (rather than on weight) have the least potential for ethical concerns.

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Conflict of Interest

Suzanna M. Azevedo and Lenny R. Vartanian declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, UNSW Australia, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia

    Suzanna M. Azevedo & Lenny R. Vartanian

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  1. Suzanna M. Azevedo
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  2. Lenny R. Vartanian
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Correspondence to Lenny R. Vartanian.

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Azevedo, S.M., Vartanian, L.R. Ethical Issues for Public Health Approaches to Obesity. Curr Obes Rep 4, 324–329 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13679-015-0166-7

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