Posts Tagged ‘weight discrimination’

Well-Meant, but Promoting Weight Bias and Discrimination

March 12, 2024 — “We must support people living with obesity by educating them about healthy lifestyles.” This is #4 in a series of well-meant statements that promote weight bias and discrimination. Such a statement purports to mean well. But there are so many problems with comments like this that it’s difficult to summarize them all in a short […]

Obesity Care Week: Five Enduring Principles

March 5, 2024 — On this, the second day of Obesity Care Week, let’s step back from all the complexity of obesity and focus on five simple principles that hold great promise for improving the way we care for people with this disease. It really doesn’t have to be so hard. 1. It Is Undeniable That Obesity Is a […]

The Essence of Autonomy in an Obesity Bill of Rights

February 1, 2024 — Yesterday, the National Consumers League and the National Council on Aging introduced the Bill of Rights for People with Obesity. At the heart of eight simple points in this document is a demand of respect for the dignity and autonomy of people living with obesity. 1. The Right to Accurate, Clear, Trusted, and Accessible Information […]

Cheers for Banning Weight Discrimination in NYC

May 13, 2023 — Every now and then, it feels really good to score a win. On Thursday, the New York City Council passed a bill to add weight and height to the city’s list of characteristics protected from discrimination. Presently, that list includes race, gender, age, religion, and sexual orientation. If Mayor Eric Adams signs this bill into […]

ASMBS: Weight Bias Across Racial and Ethnic Groups

June 8, 2022 — This is definitely a season of renewed meetings. This week, we’ve been trying to follow both the ASMBS and ADA annual meetings at once. New information is flooding out of both of them. Today, from ASMBS, comes a fascinating new study of perceptions about weight bias across diverse racial and ethnic groups. People with White, […]

More Science and Care, Fewer Food Fights in Obesity

November 8, 2021 — At ObesityWeek®, we noticed a subtle shift. In past years, health policy discussions have sometimes been stuck on very detailed food fights. But this year, it seems that such food fights were less in the foreground. Instead, we saw a much greater focus than ever before on health equity, disparities, and the people who are […]

Can Policy Stop Weight Discrimination and Bullying?

November 4, 2021 — A major thread running through ObesityWeek® is weight stigma, bias, and discrimination. Today at the Obesity Journal Symposium, the first paper presented will be a new study by a collection of distinguished weight bias researchers led by Rebecca Puhl. It is unique because it tells us that the public supports policy to stop weight discrimination […]

OW2021: Living with Obesity, Self-Stigma & Hot Topics

November 1, 2021 — 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 […]

Weight Stigma: A Burden Around the World

July 20, 2021 — . Lazy. Unmotivated. No self-discipline. No willpower. These are just a few of the widespread stereotypes ingrained in American society about people who have a higher body weight or larger body size. Known as weight stigma, these attitudes result in many Americans being blamed, teased, bullied, mistreated, and discriminated against. There is nowhere to hide […]

“Let Them Choose Not to Eat Cake…”

March 12, 2021 — Let them choose is a seductive maxim for guiding health policy. In one sense, it seems perfectly reasonable. You get to choose. We respect personal agency.  But it can also be quite punitive. You made your choices, now you have a chronic disease. You’re on your own. Sorry. A new paper in the Future Healthcare […]