A recent suggestion made by Professor Susan Jebb to combat increasing obesity among children was to insist that water replaces soda, juice or cordials at mealtimes. The problems with this as a solution have been readily pointed out in the media. But above all and like so many recent suggestions the onus is on the individual to change their eating behaviour while living in culture that constantly exhorts them and their children to indulge in highly calorific foods. At the time of writing the other most discussed remedy is to introduce a sugar tax. The arguments for targeted interventions to change eating habits through public information, taxes and regulation have been well documented elsewhere (Griffith, and O’Connell, 2010), what has received much less attention has been the relative responsibility of firms and individuals in tackling obesity.The role of business in the obesity problem has been compared in the media to that of the tobacco industry not that long ago. Others suggest that business is not concerned as to whether the population gets fat or not rather ‘what they care about is that we buy it from them [McDonalds] and not from Hardee’s Wendy’s or Jack in the Box’ (Wansinck, 2010). This from a leading researcher in the field appears to expunge business of responsibility. The quote above indicates that the overriding concern of businesses is a competitive one; they are more concerned with shareholders than stakeholders, and if it sells (and it’s legal) they will sell it to us. A a time when every business that is a household name espouse their corporate social responsibility credentials, we should question why aren’t these companies more concerned as to how much and what we eat? The main attempt in the UK to engage with businesses has been through the current government’s Responsibility Deal. The problem with such an initiative, however, is there is no overall incentive for firms to be producing healthier food with lower calories as a matter of course. There are individual initiatives but that is not going to change the substantial amount of attractive, cheap and calorific food in the average supermarket or convenience store. Meanwhile business strategies, tactics and innovation all seem to be pointing to encouraging us to consume more calories. Here are a few examples. Recently a major global food producer which is part of the Responsibility Deal promoted its well known chocolate bar which normally consists of four wafer fingers covered in chocolate in a limited edition of five fingers ‘for sharing’ – seems like four is easier to share than five. The favoured promotion in most supermarkets is buy two get one free, and also common now is buy three food types for a fixed price. In each case you may not need or want the additional quantity but the bargain offered encourages buying more. In his book ‘Addicted to Food’, James Erlichman describes another tactic used by food manufactures, they undersize portions. All food must carry the contents and calories of 100 grams of a product. But manufacturers help us work out our calorie and nutrient content by also offering the contents of a typical portion size; the trouble is that our portion size is likely to be much larger than their ‘undersized portions’. This paper will consider in more detail what responsibility means in both an individual and corporate sense and argue for a different set of pledges in any further Responsibility Deal.