Weight of the Nation

      In 2010 First Lady Michelle Obama announced a national weight loss and fitness initiative called “Let’s Move.” The public health project encouraged increased nutrition education and labeling as well as changes to school lunches. It emphasized cooperation between schools, corporations, celebrities, and government.¹ Almost immediately, the initiative came under sharp criticism. Fox News correspondent Sean Hannity said the program was “taking the nanny state to a new level.” “Michelle Obama,” he explained, “is suggesting what you should feed your children.”² On another television show that night, outspoken conservative Glenn Beck also sounded off on the initiative. Sure, it seemed like it was just a suggestion now, but Beck insisted such a plan would eventually become coercive. When people continued to make bad choices despite federal suggestions, he reasoned, “now you have to start thinking about punishments. Maybe a fine, maybe even jail.” The road to the french fry police, he explained, “always starts with a nudge.”³

      Glenn Beck’s concern about so-called government nudges was pointed. At the time, Cass Sunstein, President Barack Obama’s regulatory czar, was working to make nudging central to administration policy.⁴ In 2008 Sunstein had coauthored a book, Nudge, in which he argued that most people do a poor job of making their own decisions on everything from health to finances to the environment. Sunstein advocated managing citizens’ choices through what he called “libertarian paternalism.”⁵ This meant nudging people, or changing the way different choices were presented in ways that would encourage citizens to make more desirable choices while still letting them believe they were choosing freely. President Obama appointed Sunstein to head the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs; Glenn Beck labeled him “the most dangerous man in America.”⁶

      At the heart of the controversy over “Let’s Move” and government nudging was a larger debate about the proper boundaries of state power.⁷ The body is often imagined as too intimate or too private a matter for regulation. Indeed, such body projects involving the government are often hotly contested, whether they concern abortion, maternity care, smoking, or disability. American physique and related matters like diet and physical activity fall into this category. Over the course of the twentieth century, policy questions ranging from physical standards to nutrition guidelines have helped make the shape, size, and development of a person’s body an object of government regulation. These body projects belie the idea of any clear boundary between the public and private