Posts Tagged ‘weight stigma’

Today in New York, the Media Empathy Foundation is unveiling an unusual report and, hopefully, starting a conversation. Both the report and the conversation are all about weight stigma in popular media. Because popular media has a way of shaping popular culture and right now, weight stigma is pervasive in all media channels: news, entertainment, […]

Health at Every Size® is both an idea and a trademark. The trademark is owned by the Association for Size Diversity and Health. The idea is all about a view of health independent of a person’s weight. So folks who travel in the HAES® orbit take a dim view of the word obesity – even […]

Public health should stop talking about obesity, says a policy brief from University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health. “Replace assignments connecting ‘obesity’ and health,” suggests the brief. Cancel the word obesity and weight stigma will fade. That seems to be the thinking there. At the other extreme, we have folks who love to […]

Cancer is not just exuberant cell growth. Nor is depression simply a matter of feeling sad. Likewise obesity is not a simple matter of living in a larger body. But cancer, depression, and obesity are medical words that can be daunting and also misused. And each of them can bring stigma to complicate any efforts […]

Lourdes “Lulu” Garcia-Navarro has earned herself a new fan club. Simply, clearly, and better that most anyone who knows the subject of obesity, stigma, and health, she just told the world how weight stigma undermines our health. She showed us how health professionals are part of the problem. But most of all she showed us […]

This news from ECO2022, sadly, is not surprising. At an outstanding session on mental health and stigma, Sally Abbott presented new research on the implicit weight bias. In fact, she measured it in healthcare providers from UK bariatric services. These were mostly dietitians, psychologists, and nurses. More than 40 percent of these HCPs held implicit […]

For the last two days, the national board of the Obesity Action Coalition has been thinking deeply about its strategic direction for the next five years. It was an occasion for two very different mindsets. On one hand, we see that much has changed in just the last few years with regard to the problems […]

New data keeps documenting the safety, health, and quality of life benefits from bariatric surgery for teens who need it. But only a tiny number of the 4.5 million young people with severe obesity receive this procedure. So what are the daunting barriers that stand in the way? A new qualitative study in SOARD offers […]

Weight bias is a moving target. It is moving from a shout to a quiet murmur, from explicit shaming to implicit insults. In 2015, a peer-reviewed medical journal would publish advice to tell patients bluntly that obesity is their fault. With an AJM editorial then, Robert Doroghazi wrote that he thought it best to confront […]

The economy of shame and pride is at work in human cultures everywhere. Public shaming can take aim at whole countries and companies or at random individuals. In The Shame Machine, Cathy O’Neil describes shame as the foundation for an industry that can destroy people: “Humiliation lingers in the mind, the heart, the veins, the […]