Posts Tagged ‘weight discrimination’

The headline brought a cringe: “Can shame be useful?” Writing in the New York Times, psychiatrist Sally Satel and psychologist Scott Lilienfeld say that: The experience of shame – the feeling that one has failed to live up to one’s own standards – can play a positive role in recovery from addiction, as well as from other […]

Geico has fun in commercials with the catchphrase “when pigs fly.” But according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, flying pigs — as service animals — are not so rarified. Reporter Elizabeth Bloom describes flying over the holidays with a pig named Hamlet as a fellow traveler. What is striking about this story is the degree of courtesy and respect that […]

Fat shaming is definitely not in good taste these days and body positivity definitely is. So shouldn’t marketing plus size fashion be a simple matter? Hardly. Graduate students at the NYU Costume Studies Program have assembled an exhibition that provides extraordinary insight into just how complex this subject has been across centuries of fashion and […]

Yet another study shows that employer threats and bribes have no impact on obesity. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania published a randomized controlled trial of employer incentives for weight loss in Health Affairs and concluded: In this yearlong randomized trial, we found that three different types of incentive programs using either health benefit premium adjustments or lottery-based […]

With 2015 receding into history, we already have a pretty clear picture of trends and events that will help define 2016 in obesity, fitness, and nutrition. Here are ten that stand out. Fitness Tracking. In a global survey of 2,833 fitness professionals, the American College of Sports Medicine found that respondents expect wearable technology for fitness tracking […]

Behind the headlines of 2015 in obesity and nutrition, some important shifts have set the table for what will come in 2016. Here are six standouts Dear Fat Shamers. This was the year that public sentiment crossed a line from accepting to rejecting fat shaming. A series of stories through the year have made fat […]

Clickbait from a marketing study — should we be surprised? A study of the initial consumer responses to advertising that features plus size models has morphed this week into an assertion that plus size models “may be partly to blame for rising obesity rates.” A press release that suggested a non-existent link to obesity rates helped health […]

Five major medical groups have filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, charging 27 states with  healthcare discrimination that violates the Affordable Care Act. They cite denial of access to surgical care for obesity that discriminates against people based on pre-existing conditions, disabilities, and gender. All […]

A new study presented today at ObesityWeek in Los Angeles provides a bit of good news and a bit of bad news about bias against people living with the disease of obesity. Data from research with more than 70,000 U.S. adults beginning in 2013 suggests that “the public increasingly understands that obesity is more complicated than simplistic […]

In the ObesityWeek advocacy forum Tuesday, three speakers challenged advocates for obesity care to look at the issue of access to obesity care through fresh eyes. Access to care has been typically framed as a health issue. But Jennifer Shinall of the Vanderbilt University Law School explained that a more productive approach might be to frame […]