Who Wants a Fat Child?: Care for Obese Children in Weight Obsessed Societies

The treatment of obese people in our society, especially fat children gives rise to much indignation ("Fat", "fatness" - rather than "obese, obesity" - are preferred terms among groups and individuals protesting societal and traditional public health treatment of large persons.) Not all obese individuals are poor; but being excessively overweight tends to be inversely related to socio economic status among women and their children in post industrial societies. Poor children who are fat often have the hardest experiences because they are large, are in poverty, and are dependent on parents and others for their welfare. Fat people are not protected from discrimination in most jurisdictions. Human rights laws should be amended to shield obese individuals from prejudicial actions. In addition, activism, public health models, and various legal interventions, to be discussed, need to focus on people, especially children, eating/drinking nutritiously and being physically active - with their weight being a secondary consideration. These issues are illustrated by discussing programs in the United States designed to assist poor families to eat and drink more nutritiously. El tratamiento de las personas obesas en nuestra sociedad, especialmente en el caso de los ni&ntilde;os, da lugar a mucha indignaci&oacute;n (se usan t&eacute;rminos como "gordo", "gordura", en lugar de "obeso, obesidad", entre los grupos e individuos que protestan por el tratamiento social y la sanidad p&uacute;bica tradicional para tratar a las personas grandes). No todas las personas obesas son pobres; pero en las sociedades postindustriales, entre mujeres y sus hijos tener un sobrepeso excesivo tiende a estar inversamente relacionado con la posici&oacute;n socioecon&oacute;mico. Los ni&ntilde;os pobres que est&aacute;n gordos sufren, a menudo, las experiencias m&aacute;s duras, porque son grandes, est&aacute;n en situaci&oacute;n de pobreza, y su bienestar depende de sus padres y otras personas. En la mayor&iacute;a de jurisdicciones, las personas gordas no est&aacute;n protegidas contra la discriminaci&oacute;n. Las leyes de derechos humanos deber&iacute;an modificarse para proteger a las personas obesas frente a acciones lesivas. Adem&aacute;s, se analizar&aacute;n el activismo, los modelos de salud p&uacute;blica, y diversas intervenciones legales. Todos ellos necesitan centrarse en las personas, especialmente los ni&ntilde;os, que comen y beben de forma equilibrada, y que realizan actividad f&iacute;sica, siendo el peso una consideraci&oacute;n secundaria. Estos temas se ilustran mediante el an&aacute;lisis de programas estadounidenses destinados a ayudar a que familias pobres coman y beban de forma m&aacute;s nutritiva. DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER FROM SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2559676</p

International human rights law and the prevention of childhood obesity

This article surveys the application of international human rights law to obesity prevention laws, such as restrictions on marketing unhealthy food to children, interpretive front-of-pack labelling, healthy food policies in schools and the public sector, and taxes on unhealthy products. It discusses the right to health, the right to food, freedom of commercial speech, the rights of the child and a range of World Health Organization initiatives. Such instruments can provide both constitutional power and political cover for such measures, as well as providing policy guidance in selecting the most appropriate ones

Physics and technology of the Next Linear Collider: a report submitted to Snowmass '96

We present the current expectations for the design and physics program of an e+e- linear collider of center of mass energy 500 GeV -- 1 TeV. We review the experiments that would be carried out at this facility and demonstrate its key role in exploring physics beyond the Standard Model over the full range of theoretical possibilities. We then show the feasibility of constructing this machine, by reviewing the current status of linear collider technology and by presenting a precis of our `zeroth-order' design