Let's Talk About 'fat': Conceptualization of Obesity in Canada, the Role of Social Determinants of Health & Neoliberal Policies

In the last twenty years, obesity has become a major concern in the public health and academic literatures. Most of this literature stems from a biomedical and behavioural/lifestyle perspective. However, parallel to this view emerged a different approach which questioned the validity of the obesity ‘epidemic’. This Major Research Paper (MRP) focuses on how obesity is conceptualized in Canada by analyzing two governmental and one non-government report through use of qualitative content analysis. A critical analysis of these reports will use Labonte’s (1993), supplemented by Raphael, framework of biomedical, behavioural/lifestyle, socio-environmental and critical structural approaches. It explores whether social determinants of health play a role in these reports. And lastly, a political economy approach is used to explore how the Canadian political climate with its neoliberal public policy reforms formulates and influences strategies proposed to ‘treat’ obesity.