Collateral Damage from Friendly Fire?: Race, Nation, Class and the “War Against Obesity”

As the war against obesity intensifies in the United States, obesity is frequently portrayed as a problem of class, race, and nationality that has serious economic costs for a nation whose healthcare resources are already limited. The competition for resources has caused not only an economic panic but also a moral panic about who deserves available resources, and obesity has become a flashpoint for discussing concerns about the fiscal and physical health of the United States. This paper examines how the war against obesity (and especially the rhetoric employed) negatively affect a growing number of people by projecting national angst about race, class, and economics onto individual lives.