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actions being denounced not only are damaging in themselves but are also symptoms of a deeper condition. 80 The alleged obesity epidemic is seen as a symptom of a wide range of issues, including moral laxity, corporate greed, and addiction. Cohen further argues that moral panics identify sympathetic victims. In the case of childhood obesity, fat children are often depicted as victims of child abuse, as in this news article: “Parents who do nothing to prevent obesity in their children are guilty of abuse, if not legally then morally.” 81 In the context of airplane travel, thin people are described as victimized by heavier travelers. “Why is it that if I say anything about being stuck between two huge people on an airplane, I’m being politically incorrect?” asks a Los Angeles actor in a 2010 Los Angeles Times article. “I work out religiously, watch what I eat and am very healthy. Yes, I’m fed up with [obesity].” 82 Reports on the economic costs of obesity paint the nonfat as victims, in that they are unfairly burdened with the cost of fat people’s unhealthy lifestyles. In the words of one woman: “I am completely and utterly frustrated with rising healthcare costs due to the deluge of fat Americans taxing the healthcare system.” 83
    Economic analyses suggest that there are many institutional and social structural factors contributing to higher spending on health care in the United States over time and as compared to other industrialized democratic nations, including the higher incomes of medical professionals and expensive new technologies. 84 Yet, these forces are abstract and do not lend themselves to simple morality tales. It is easier to blame fat people for bankrupting society because of their self-indulgent ways. Such rhetoric draws on increasingly influential arguments that individuals are personally responsible for taking care of their health and guarding against illness. 85 Such arguments are at the heart of neoliberalism, also known as trickle-down economics and championed by Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in England. Neoliberalism shifts responsibility for public welfare from governments to individual people and markets. It represents a marked departure from a risk-sharing approach to health, which assumes that illness depends largely on genetic and social factors beyond individual control. According to this view, even those who do everything right can and will get sick at some point. A risk-sharing frame asks not how much a specific person will cost, but how a health insurance policy can equitably fund a system that ensures that every participant will receive the care he or she needs, while acknowledging that some people will have greater health care costs than others. 86
    As the above news media examples illustrate, scientific expertise plays a central role in debates over “obesity” (i.e., fat as a medical and public health crisis). Indeed, medical science is another one of the factors that has been shown to trigger moral crusades. 87 The science does not even have to be accurate to have an impact, but it does have to be disseminated by policy entrepreneurs. 88 The news media are one important arena for the spreading (and contestation) of such medical findings. People and groups engaged in debates over obesity are keenly aware of the important role science plays in shifting public opinion. In fact, some science is produced with its political effects in mind. For instance, the authors of the editorial cited in the news media suggesting that obesity is driving up airline costs admit that their primary goal in doing this research was to highlight a new area in which “the obesity epidemic has unexpected consequences beyond direct health effects.” 89 It was neither to test this assumption nor to evaluate the importance of increasing body weight relative to other factors that may also be contributing to airline costs. 90
    ESTABLISHING AND CONTESTING MEDICAL