Self-destructiveness and the State

In an editorial that appeared in The Globe and Mail in January 2011, André Picard, Canada’s most insightful health journalist, decried the growing tendency to blame and shame individuals for being overweight. In his view, the graphic images of big butts and jiggly bellies that invariably accompany television news items and documentaries make his point. Stigma also seems to be the weapon of choice of public health academics as they warn us of the obesity “pandemic.” Picard picked on Rebecca Puhl, the director of research at Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, who referred to the obesity phenomenon as the “headless stomach.” You can almost hear the howls of outrage and indignation by the Puhls of this world: why can’t these people just control themselves?

Excessive consumption is a common enough human attribute, but our understanding of why we overdo...