Obesity Epidemics, the State, the Individual, and the Private in Public-Private Partnerships

Abstract

The report aims to illustrate how weakening of the statehood is reflected in the way EU and its member-states manage obesity epidemics. Private interests and behavioural turn in policy mechanisms call for more state involvement and rigorous democratic deliberation not only of nudges coming from the state, but those coming from the industry as well. The potential of nudging does not lie in the behavioural interventions it is capable of producing, but rather in the discourse it kick-started, as behavioural law and economics are paving their way into policy-making.