Oregon Law Review : Vol. 89, No. 4, p. 1113-1178 : Weighing Status: Obesity, Class, and Health Reform
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Date
2011
Authors
Dolgin, Janet L.
Dieterich, Katherine R.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon School of Law
Abstract
This Article focuses on the association between poverty
and obesity and the implications of that association for attitudes
toward health care reform. It suggests that alongside the nation’s
putative efforts to “fight” obesity sits a far less explicit attempt to
undermine that effort. And it suggests that a similar conflict underlies
the effort to mitigate poverty. These conflicts and the social tensions
they reflect must be revealed and examined in order to understand
fully the nation’s longstanding refusal, and its continuing reluctance,
to provide adequate health care coverage for everyone.
Part I considers America’s peculiar class system, comparing the
myth with the reality. It then explores the significance of that system
in explaining the nation’s hesitation about providing health care
coverage for everyone. Part II compares social assumptions about
poverty with social assumptions about obesity. This Part suggests
that the nation’s putative interest in ameliorating poverty and
“fighting” obesity is undermined by conflicting interests. Part III then
summarizes and offers an explanation of the 2010 health reform law’s
limited response to obesity discrimination and to discrimination based
on class. Finally, Part IV examines the implications of the nation’s
ambivalent response to expanding health care coverage, both before
and after passage of the 2010 health reform law. That ambivalence is
illustrated through reference to conflated images of poverty and
obesity.
Description
66 p.
Keywords
Obesity, Health care reform
Citation
89 Or. L. Rev. 1113 (2011)