Table 1. Governmentality and the Moral Panic Around Obesity .

How Problems Arise and Are Responded to	Obesity as the Issue and the Obese as the Problem
Problematization: • How did this problem emerge and what concerns is it in relationship to? • Who defines it as a problem? • How are people with this problem differentiated from those who do not have it?	The issue emerged as non-communicable diseases assumed a priority in public health Obesity was defined as a problem because of a link made between it and some major non-communicable diseases. People are differentiated by BMI – a measure that identifies who is seen as having a healthy weight and who is identified as at risk.
Explanation: • What is the language used to explain? • What is considered to be evidence? What sorts of visibility is conferred?	There are competing discourses: Obesity as an individual responsibility indicating a lack of control, a moral failing. Obesity as a social issue either as a manifestation of a particular modernity or as an outcome of living in an obesogenic environment. Evidence of obesity is linked to an easily arrived at measure (BMI). Obesity is a health and an aesthetic construct – there is a “desirable” body size and shape promoted by the media as well as by health experts.
Technologies: • What tests are used? • What are the techniques of reformation and cure invoked? • How will these be enacted?	Measurement and location on a continuum – with the centre of that continuum being the desired location. Reformation and cure are linked to individuals modifying their behaviour – eating healthy foods and exercising. This ostensibly will be achieved by advice and persuasion, but in practice the mechanism for change relies on seeking to label those resistant to change as morally failing. There is also a discourse that identifies social context, this prompts more sovereign power opportunities – tax/ prohibitions/zoning/not giving planning permissions for fast-food outlets etc.
Authorities: • Who is considered to have expertise? • Who maintains authority in this area?	Psychologists and behavioural economists. Doctors and nurses, with inputs from dieticians. Public health practitioners (town planners and urban geographers) when social dimensions are engaged.
Subjectivities: • What kind are we trying to foster/create?	The health identity: virtuous, wise, moderate. The aspirational aesthetic: slim and therefore attractive, desirable.
Strategies: • What is the governmental aspiration here?	“Prevention of degeneration, eugenic maximisation of the fitness of the race, minimisation of the cost of social maladjustment.”8 Also seeking to foster the conformity of the population through the instructional example of the misery of the folk devils.

Abbreviation: BMI, body mass index.

Note: Left column adapted from Rose.⁸