Promoting Healthy Behavior

The government, the media, HMOs and individual Americans have all embraced programmes to promote disease prevention. Yet obesity is up, exercise is down, teenagers continue to smoke, and sexually transmitted disease is rampant. Why? These essays examine the ethical and social problems that create subtle obstacles to changing Americans' unhealthy behaviour. The contributors raise profound questions about the role of the state or employers in trying to change health-related behaviour, about the actual health and economic benefits of even trying, and about the freedom and responsibility of those of us who, as citizens, are the target of such efforts.