Objective
Overweight and obesity are according to the WHO a major threat for in our century. Worldwide. Many EU and non-EU countries have or consider interventions to prevent overweight and obesity by influencing the lifestyle of citizens. Such interventions are no t morally neutral. The may cut deep in the individual persons life because they involve essential views an values regarding food and eating, appearance and image, the impact of biological and socio-cultural technologies and freedom. This project analyses the ethics of interventions to prevent overweight and obesity. Interventions have to be effective and ethically justified in the light of ethical principles such as privacy, justice, individual and cultural identity and autonomy, and societal interference. Ethical justification does not take place in a moral vacuum. One needs to understand the moral and cultural climate, the similarities and differences between countries. The ethical issues have to be analyzed in the light of cultural norms and values rega rding: the image of obesity and overweight, food and eating, physical exercise and fitness, and their relation to individual lifestyle and personal responsibility. These issues structure this project: its ultimate goal is to provide an ethical framework fo r the evaluation of interventions to prevent overweight and obesity. Such a framework must rest on sound foundations. Therefore a multidisciplinary consortium will analyze cultural values, norms, traditions regarding the image of obesity and overweight, the culture of eating, the present and future biological and socio-cultural technologies in the light of ethical notions. The project has both practical and theoretical aims. Its aim is to look at a huge and urgent problem from the perspective of ethics.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
FP6-2004-SCIENCE-AND-SOCIETY-9
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