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Using Law to Facilitate Healthier Lifestyles
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To the Editor: In his Commentary, Dr Gostin1 enumerates a comprehensive range of legal tools with which to address the public health problem of increasing rates of overweight and obesity in the United States.2 However, while he asserts that government action via the law may be a legitimate approach to this problem, and discusses advantages and disadvantages of each intervention, he does not articulate a typology of the alternatives that would assist policymakers in choosing from the legal smorgasbord.
The 8 interventions Gostin discusses can be usefully organized into 3 categories based on their effect on the general public, rather than on a particular interest or industry: (1) facilitative (disclosure, "built" environment); (2) coercive (tort liability, food prohibitions); and (3) mixed, ie, containing both facilitative and coercive elements (surveillance, food marketing regulation, taxation, school and workplace policies). This scheme captures the fundamental tension between personal autonomy and the government's obligation . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Edward L. Van Oeveren, MD, JD, MPH
evanoeveren@pol.net
Falls Church, Va
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