Human Rights Casualties from the “War on Obesity”: Why Focusing on Body Weight Is Inconsistent with a Human Rights Approach to Health

Abstract

Health promotion is a relatively new health science discipline focused on creating health and wellbeing at individual, group and population levels through health and health related policies and programs. Addressing inequities in the health of people via policies and programs that address the milieu of interrelated cultural, social, economic, and political determinants of health is at the heart of health promotion practice, and as such it is a political process. A critical and salutogenic approach characterises health promotion best-practice and is well established in the health promotion literature. However, the realisation of critical and salutogenic practice can be challenging for practitioners in an environment where biomedical and behavioural health paradigms dominate. Health promotion practitioners need to partner with and learn from other disciplines that have or share similar challenges. “Health promotion is everybody’s business” is a catch cry in the field and conversations with others with similar ideals, values and principles about how to work together in the pursuit of health for all are needed