HEALTH LAW AND ETHICS - Essay Example

Health law and ethics Law defines sets of legal rules and regulations that govern practices and actions in a political territory. Ethics however, aremoral rules governing actions within a social set up. This paper explores health law and ethics through personal opinion on childhood obesity and public health delivery. Childhood obesity refers to excessive body fats among children. It has significant and diverse effects on the children to warrant public concern. This is particularly because of its increasingly reported cases and its consequences on the children.

The children are for instance prone to stigma that leads to emotional and psychological disturbance. Further, childhood obesity increases the children’s vulnerability to cardiovascular diseases. The major cause of childhood obesity, being consumption of foods with high levels of calories, however induces both legal and ethical concerns. This is because different stakeholders such as the government, the fast food industry, and parents have a responsibility to protect children from the identified health risk factors.

The government should for example enact strict laws to regulate level of calories in produced foods while the industry should outline ethical measures for protecting children. Judicial implementation of the regulations would greatly solve the childhood obesity issue.The opinion that public health has currently thrived more that in old days is true and consistent with the high living standard that has led to higher life expectancy. Such developments in public health are however attributable to public health policies that are legally formulated and enforced to ensure that individuals right to life is protected by the government.

Established legal measures and ethical standards in public health have also ensured immediate and adequate services. The wide scope of health law and ethics aims at regulating public health services for proper service delivery. This goal has however not been effectively implemented.