Stemming the Tide of Obesity

Abstract

This chapter argues for the kind of societal and policy efforts that would be necessary to resolve the social problem of obesity. The perspective of this chapter is, thus, extremely ambitious and idealistic. Because of the large scale of the problem, it is necessary to explain about (1) why a social movement is necessary and (2) the kinds of government policy efforts that would have a real chance of eliminating or drastically reducing obesity. As is widely known, in the last 30 years, the obesity problem in advanced industrial countries such as the United States and a fair number of developing countries has grown rapidly and reached epidemic proportions. Moreover, obesity is associated with quite a few severe medical afflictions, not just for older adults but also for young people. It follows that efforts to end obesity are extremely important for countries such as the United States that suffer from high rates of obesity. Accordingly, developing a viable approach to fixing the obesity problem is also extremely important.