Posts Tagged ‘weight stigma’

A new study in the Journal of Clinical Hypertension tells us that roughly half of youth seeking obesity care have high blood pressure. This medical fact puts us squarely in the middle of a sensitive subject that arouses strong emotions. These emotions have their roots in the bias attached to obesity and the stigma that […]

As we come to the end of OCW2022, we come to face a basic question: why does it matter? Why do we care about obesity care? The answer is quite simple, really. Science tells us that obesity is a complex, chronic condition driven by our physiology. Yet our culture and even our healthcare systems do […]

Stages of Change is is a concept deeply embedded in our thinking about health behaviors and obesity. “How ready are you to change?” is the core question. But when applied to obesity care, it is a model with shameful power to promote implicit bias. A new perspective today in the New England Journal of Medicine […]

Recent analyses of health policy on obesity present a rather stark picture. Policies aimed at obesity have done more to promote stigma than health. The focus on individuals has not changed for decades, say James Nobles and his colleagues. In fact, they found that 58 percent of research aimed to prove that educating individuals to […]

Today marks the opening of ObesityWeek (OW2021) and the one thing you won’t want to miss is the Presidential Plenary. That’s because it packs a fabulous inventory of the hottest topics at ObesityWeek into just two hours. The premier is at 10:00 am (East) today, with an encore at 9:30 pm tonight. But the most […]

The numbers make it crystal clear. One of the long-term effects of the COVID pandemic will be a jump in child obesity. And it’s not hard to trace that back to the mental health of children and families. Late last week a new report in Pediatrics provided a stark reminder about the impact of COVID […]

With great gifts come great responsibilities. It doesn’t really matter whether you get this message from biblical sources or Spiderman. The imperative is there. If you have a big platform, you better use it to serve a purpose bigger than yourself. It looks like Queen Latifah and Novo Nordisk might be using their platforms to […]

We have an opportunity before us, say Thiago Gagliano-Jucá and Caroline Apovian. They are writing in Annals of Internal Medicine to reflect on the implications of words we use in healthcare. Specifically, they are talking about the words providers attach to obesity – words like morbid. These are words that leave patients feeling judged. Such […]

The Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) is out with its annual report on obesity. The headline? It’s bad and getting worse. But any mention of the lived experience for real persons with obesity is absent. Empathy doesn’t fit with a strategy focused on catastrophizing the problem of too many people living with obesity. The implicit […]

The first ever systematic review and meta-analysis of weight bias in healthcare professionals is bracing. Blake Lawrence and colleagues have just published it in Obesity. It tells us that weight bias in healthcare has been fully visible for three decades. But the work of reversing it has barely begun. The authors of this analysis note […]