Legislative approaches to the obesity epidemic

OOD has long been an explicit and implicit subject of both state and federal legislation in the United States. Federal legislation has addressed food safety through the regulation of content and labeling of food prod-ucts and regulation of the food production environ-ment (1). More indirectly, the Congress has promul-gated economic policies that subsidize many aspects of food production, ultimately affecting what foods are available to the consumer. Con-gress has also mandated and controlled federal programs such as the National School Lunch Program (2). States have enacted laws granting regulatory authority to state agencies that inspect and regulate food consumption. Many states also have statutory consumer protection laws that provide redress for individuals who have been injured by a food product. It is in these areas that legislatures have traditionally acted, and where legal levers for future action reside. Federal and state legislatures occasionally acknowledge the obesity epidemic, but little is being done to address the root causes of the problem. A long-standing tension, often styled as that between pater-nalism and individual liberty, pits public health against American individualism. Against a backdrop of government agriculture subsi-dies and economic protectionism, health is generally regarded as the sole responsibility of the individual consumer. The public and legisla-tures fail to recognize government and institutional responsibility for the current “toxic ” food environment. We provide a brief overview of the role of federal and state legislatures in mitigating the epidemic. Given the breadth of the subject, we have not attempted a compre-hensive analysis of legislation. Instead, we focus on three key domains: economic policy, federal programs, and food health and safety. W