ABSTRACT
I began writing this book in the latter half of 2008. There were signs even then that obesity was beginning to cool as a media story and public policy issue. In the previous five years or so it had competed successfully for attention with the likes of climate change and the risks of a new influenza pandemic. But as the decade drew to a close, various conflicts in the Middle East and the global economic downturn dominated the news. By the beginning of 2009, the obesity epidemic had become a second-or third-order problem for news and policy-makers.
