Raphael, DennisDaiski, IsoldeMedvedyuk, Stella2017-06-212017-06-212015-08-26http://hdl.handle.net/10315/33231Major Research Paper (Master's), Health, Faculty of Health, School of Health Policy and Management, York UniversityIn 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.enThe copyright for the paper content remains with the author.public healthobesitybiomedicalsocial determinants of healthpolitical economyResearch Paper