The author examines air pollution, physical activity and obesity, transportation safety, and social isolation.

Since the mid-1980s, Americans have gotten fatter. Numerous policy initiatives have failed to reverse the upward trend in body weights, and the Center for Disease Control labels obesity as an "epidemic" generating enormous health costs. Plaintiffs' lawyers and public health organizations are devising litigation to address this problem with the...

A new study projects that U.S. healthcare spending will rise by as much as $66 billion a year by 2030 because of obesity. That’s about 2.6 percent of current health spending. While this trend is of obvious concern (and would be good to avoid), those figures pale in comparison to the total amount of U.S. health spending that can be attributed to behavior, lifestyle, and other avoidable causes.

An AEI conference on June 10 outlined the health problems associated with obesity, addressed the reasons for its growth, and considered policy responses.

Pressure on firms has focused attention on their role in obesity, while ignoring the problem that parents (and schools) are to blame for not enabling their children to burn enough calories.

Are there 1,700 autopsies declaring air pollution as the cause of death? Are 6,000 people admitted to hospital each year with a diagnosis of "air pollution" as the cause?

Social conditions affect physical well-being, but public health practitioners arewrong to think they have special expertise in changing the income distribution ordefining social justice.

Often failing to fulfill its assigned mandates and unable to implement the initiatives it has begun, the UN's World Health Organization desperately needs to reform.