Paper short abstract:

Government discourse emphasises individuals' responsibility for healthy eating and corporations' responsibility in food production and promotion. But for effective, meaningful public health policy, it is essential to understand how actors in the food system construct and delineate responsibility.

Paper long abstract:

The locus of responsibility for dietary behaviour and ensuing health outcomes is uncertain, although systemic factors beyond individual control are significant. Indeed, there is an ideological tension in the assignment of such responsibility: to what degree it lies with individuals, with the state and its proxies, or with powerful commercial interests whose raison d'être is to profit from food sales. Meanwhile, a 'behavioural justice' perspective suggests that individuals cannot be held entirely responsible for their health behaviour unless they have the resources - economic and otherwise - to make fully informed choices. As such, expecting individuals to take sole responsibility for their food choices is to ignore the role in diet-related health outcomes of structural and relational factors. This paper elucidates the implicit and explicit portrayal and expectations of responsibility for healthy eating in industry and government discourse. Such discourse is contextualised in and contrasted with public health policy and evidence from the media and food outlets; the analysis also accounts for the uncertain line between state and corporate responsibility, and individual autonomy. The common usage of 'responsibility' in public health discourse belies its subjective and intangible nature. This research emphasises the importance of consensus on the meaning and loci of responsibility, and questions whether it is proportionally delineated between different actors in the food system.