Doctors and hospitals must stop being bystanders to food-related illness and begin to become role models and educators in the transition to healthful eating habits, just as they did in tobacco cessation.
Richard Zeckhauser, PhD and Benjamin Sommers, MD, PhD
While patient consumerism may cause inefficiencies that need to be managed appropriately, insofar as it leads to active patient participation it has the potential to improve medical decision making.
All of us who are pursuing solutions to the obesity epidemic face clinical, ethical, and regulatory challenges. First among them is the significant role of individual lifestyle and behavior choices in causing obesity.