Introduction

The World Health Organization (WHO, 2004, 2011) and USCenters for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC,2010) refer to obesity as an epidemic. The healthconsequences of obesity are severe, includingincreased risks of stroke and type-2 diabetes.Two-thirds of the US population is overweight orobese, and obesity is the leading cause ofpreventable death (Haomiao and Lubetkin, 2010).While there is agreement on the dangers andconsequences of obesity, there exists a robustdiscussion on what exactly causes obesity.Candidates include portion sizes, aggressivemarketing, ignorance about ingredients and theireffects, government subsidies, sedentary lifestyles,or a lack of alternatives. Closely linked to thisdiscussion of causes is a debate aboutresponsibility.

The term ‘responsibility’ has its roots in 18th and19th-century political and legal spheres (Feinberg,1970; Fletcher, 1999). Given the legal foundationsof the term, it comes as no surprise thatresponsibility has mainly been interpreted as aretrospective concept. Retrospective responsibilityrefers to an actor's past actions and the resultingoutcomes (Miller, 2001). The retrospectiveinterpretation of responsibility aims at punishmentof the perpetrator for harm caused and atcompensation for the victim (Feinberg, 1970;Fletcher, 1999). Central to the retrospectiveapproach to responsibility is the identification ofthe offender or wrongdoer and assigningresponsibility:

The challenge regarding food crimes in general, andobesity more specifically, is that obesity is theresult of many actions by a variety of actors suchas governments, businesses and consumers. Thischapter introduces a more nuanced approach informedby recent work in philosophy addressing questions ofcomplex responsibility and agency. Because questionsof agency are complicated by the number anddiversity of actors across global value chains,responsibility needs to be understood as shared andinteractive.