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Ethical Issues in Research

Columbia Southern University

PUH 6301 Public Health Research

February 11, 2020

Ethical Issues in Research

Ethical issues that could occur in my research study of obesity and healthy eating include the general safety of the people used in conducting the research,advocating for the sale of healthy foods and avoiding snacks and general issues of governance against the whole topic of research (Whitaker, 1997). As regards the general safety of the people involved in the research, the ethical issues that could occur are unconsciously body shaming the people involved in the research. An example is if the research targets a group of people that would be most likely considered obese then chances are high that it may expose them to even more body shaming. It also works negatively for their self esteem and may affect the research results (Whitaker, 1997).

The other psychological aspect of body shaming that may occur in thus regard is segregative discrimination (Pi-Sunyer,1993). If the experiment involves different groups of people with different body sizes,you may find the group that has the socially accepted body size,which is in most cases skinny body types, start to shame the other group of people.The actual act of separating them for research can also affect them negatively. The solution would be to have the experiment done in a way that each group does not know about the other one (Pi-Sunyer,1993).

The psychological aspect of body shaming is a serious ethical issue that arises when doing research on on obesity and healthy ageing.This is even more crucial for ladies who are subjected to various aspects of body shaming due to their obese conditions and strive therefore to achieve a perfect look. The society through empowering men has led them to impose strict conditions for the so called ‘beautiful’ physique that the modern woman should have.This has led to an emergence of a huge cosmetics surgery industry and countless other women suffering daily psychological torture among other effects. A non-intrusive or private way of doing the research would therefore be more suitable (Macdiarmid, 2013).

Another ethical issue that could occur during this research is advocating for the sale of healthy products while using unhealthy products to carry out research.The research critics could argue that the basis of the research is to advocate for healthy ageing and healthy food options,but the actual research process can involve consumption of snacks to highlight how they affect the human body. This would be a serious ethical issue that could present itself and if not handled well could lead to people avoiding the research altogether. The obese generation is the largest consumers of unhealthy snacks from the snack industry, and statistics show that it is one of the most profitable industries in America today (Whitaker, 1997). The normal working class citizen is most likely to eat a snack as opposed to a healthy food option like a fruit and the fact that there exists a Macdonald’s food store at almost every street corner in America does not help only adds to the problems of the snacking culture.

The ethical issues that would present themselves in this case is critics saying that the snack producing companies are an integral part of the American economy (Pi-Sunyer,1993). This could be because the companies pay their taxes well and have corporate social responsibility projects. They would also add that they do their part to solve the problem of unemployment, which is an important part of development. This is overlooked by the research and would be a serious issue of contention. The result might even include actual resistance by government or governing authorities against carrying out the research. The experiments involved should therefore advocate for the safety of the individuals involved by making the subjects consume only healthy foods (Pi-Sunyer,1993). This is due to mainstream media propagating the narrative of unhealthy foods being cool for the mass population

References

Macdiarmid, J. I. (2013). Is a healthy diet an environmentally sustainable diet?. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society , 72 (1), 13-20.

Pi-Sunyer, F. X. (1993). Medical hazards of obesity. Annals of internal medicine, 119(7), 655-660.

Whitaker, R. C., Wright, J. A., Pepe, M. S., Seidel, K. D., & Dietz, W. H. (1997). Predicting obesity in young adulthood from childhood and parental obesity. New England journal of medicine, 337(13), 869-873.