Abstract

Health promotion is increasingly focused on 'upstream' interventions targeted at population- and society-level determinants of health. In this talk, I argue that such a focus is, at least in the short to medium term, simply not possible in the case of obesity. Given the social and cultural understandings of fatness that dominate our culture, mention of obesity, fat, body mass index or similar terms will immediately and unavoidably shift the focus to an individual level and to behaviour change and, in many circumstances, resistance or even hostility to structural interventions. If we want to convince policymakers and the wider public of the need for changes to food environments and food systems, our best bet is to focus as little as possible on obesity. 

Bus Stop Chats

The ISS21 SHAPE (Society, Health Equity and Political Economy) research cluster will host a series of online Bus Stop Chats, from December 2025 to May 2026. Each of these informal lunch-time events involves a member of the SHAPE cluster presenting and discussing an area of their research to an interested and largely non-expert audience. 

Details and link to event on 11 March 2026 to follow.