A new paper by Patrick Basham and John Luik has been added to our Scientific Portal. From the introduction to "Outcasts: The Obese and Other Victims of Denormalisation":
"One of the more disturbing contemporary trends in public health is the government’s attempt to socially engineer our cultural and political environment so that the public becomes less tolerant of obesity and those the government categorises as obese, as well as less tolerant of gambling and of gamblers, less tolerant of smoking and of smokers, and less tolerant of those who manufacture and drink alcohol. Through such nanny-state paternalism, the government seeks to ensure that people behave in ‘appropriate’ ways, as defined by itself and a coterie of public health bureaucrats and academics.
"This study examines the government’s increasing use of respective ‘denormalisation’ campaigns against the food, gambling, drinks, and tobacco industries. As employed by the government and by the anti-obesity movement, denormalisation is a made-up word that functions as both a noun and as a verb to describe both a state in which, for example, the food industry and obesity are perceived to be abnormal, aberrant, even deviant, and a series of activities designed to achieve this end."
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