Childhood obesity - a sign of commercial success, but a market failure.

Childhood obesity - a sign of commercial success, but a market failure.

Moodie, Rob, Swinburn, Boyd, Richardson, Jeff and Somaini, Bertino 2006, Childhood obesity - a sign of commercial success, but a market failure., International journal of pediatric obesity, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 133-138.

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Title	Childhood obesity - a sign of commercial success, but a market failure.
Author(s)	Moodie, Rob Swinburn, Boyd Richardson, Jeff Somaini, Bertino
Journal name	International journal of pediatric obesity
Volume number	1
Issue number	3
Start page	133
End page	138
Publisher	Informa Healthcare
Place of publication	United Kingdom
Publication date	2006-08
ISSN	1747-7166
Keyword(s)	obesity childhood economics market commerce government intervention
Summary	'Obesogenic' products, such as energy dense foods, passive entertainment products, cars, and labour-saving devices, are widely available and heavily promoted. Because they are highly consumed and very profitable, obesity becomes the inevitable consequence of their commercial successes. Contemporary market forces heavily favour behaviours for short-term preferences (i.e. over-consumption and underactivity) over long-term preferences (i.e. healthy weight) and this is especially true for children. Hence, if the market, as the main mechanism for determining choices, results in outcomes, which make our children worse off, as is occurring with childhood obesity, then the market has failed to sustain and promote social and individual goals. This is a serious market failure. In the current obesogenic environment, expecting adults, let alone children, to make food and activity choices in their own best long-term interests is, therefore, demonstrably flawed. We argue that significant government intervention is needed to correct this market failure, as has been done for other major health problems.
Notes	RSD author affiliation on Richardson changed GH 29 march 2011
Language	eng
Field of Research	111799 Public Health and Health Services not elsewhere classified
HERDC Research category	C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal
Copyright notice	©2006, Taylor & Francis
Persistent URL	http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30009064

Document type:	Journal Article
Collection:	School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences

Citation counts:	Cited 18 times in TR Web of Science Cited 21 times in Scopus
Access Statistics:	564 Abstract Views, 0 File Downloads - Detailed Statistics
Created:	Mon, 13 Oct 2008, 15:50:05 EST

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