obesity in America: who cares?

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Jul 23 18:31:25 PDT 2002


"Public Opinion and the Politics of America's Obesity Epidemic"

BY: J. ERIC OLIVER

Princeton University

Woodrow Wilson School

TAEKU LEE

Harvard University

John F. Kennedy School of Government

Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection:

http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=313824

Paper ID: KSG Working Paper No. RWP02-017

Date: May 2002

Contact: TAEKU LEE

Email: Mailto:taeku_lee at ksg.harvard.edu

Postal: Harvard University

John F. Kennedy School of Government

79 John F. Kennedy Street

Cambridge, MA 02138 UNITED STATES

Phone: 617-495-0503

Co-Auth: J. ERIC OLIVER

Email: Mailto:eoliver at Princeton.EDU

Postal: Princeton University

Woodrow Wilson School

Princeton, NJ 08544-1021 UNITED STATES

Paper Requests:

Contact Raquel Schott, Mailto:Raquel_Schott at ksg.harvard.edu

Postal: JFK School of Government, Harvard University, 79 John F.

Kennedy St., Cambridge, MA 02138. Phone:(617)495-5444.

Fax:(617)496-0001.

ABSTRACT:

Recently, health policy experts have sounded the warning about

the severe health and economic consequences of America's growing

obesity epidemic. Despite this fact, obesity has not yet entered

America's political consciousness and we have little information

about what average Americans think of obesity or whether they

support obesity related policies. The nascence of the obesity

epidemic presents an interesting opportunity to examine public

opinion at the beginning of an issue's evolution. Using unique

survey data collected by the authors, this paper presents the

first examination of public attitudes towards obesity and

obesity policy. We find that, contrary to the views of health

experts, most Americans are not seriously concerned with

obesity, express relatively low support for obesity-targeted

policies, and still view obesity as resulting from individual

failure rather than environmental or genetic sources. Given the

absence of elite discourse on this problem, we also find that

typical determinants of policy preferences, such as ideology or

partisanship, are not good predictors of attitudes on obesity

policy. Rather, with a low valence issue like obesity, the

public relies on prior awareness, policy heuristics, and causal

explanations to inform their opinions. The implications of these

findings for obesity policy and research on public opinion are

discussed.

Keywords: Political Science, Press and Public Policy,

Welfare/Health Care/Social Policy



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list