The Empathy Gap in Healthcare and Obesity
Two new papers offer a sharp focus on a stark gap at the intersection of healthcare and obesity – a dearth of empathy. Stuart Flint and colleagues explain the importance of understanding lived experiences with obesity for closing that gap:
“The lived experience of obesity is clearly much more complex than the typical societal narrative, and just like in other areas of healthcare, the lived experience offers a richness of information that should be better understood and translated. This may also help to regain compassion and empathy in both wider and focused healthcare approaches related to obesity.”
Their narrative review appears in Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism.
Impeding the Pursuit of Health
In PLOS One, Ryan Kane and colleagues report on lived experiences of 3,219 patients. With this, they document how the empathy gap in healthcare can hinder the pursuit of health for persons with obesity. They found that very few persons with obesity wanted to avoid the subject of weight management altogether with healthcare providers. But a surprising number of patients had never discussed it with them.
A key finding is that empathy and understanding of patient preferences is critical for approaching this subject without stigma:
“There is no singular approach to addressing weight management with all patients, given their individualized preferences and perspectives. One recommendation gleaned from participants’ free responses and the variability in patient preferences is for providers to broach the discussion of weight management and lifestyle changes by first asking patients for their permission to do so.
“When some patients presented to appointments with seemingly unrelated concerns, it was stigmatizing and off-putting for providers to elevate the topic of weight management.”
Elevating Patient Voices
Though experiences of stigma is complex, one finding is consistent in both of these papers. Listening with empathy to patients is key to overcoming stigma in healthcare settings. Flint et al summarize it well:
“Through evidence and the patient voice, we highlight the need for greater psychological support for people living with obesity. Crucial to this, is the importance of the lived experience of obesity which should be used to inform the development and design of services.”
Click here for the paper by Flint et al and here for Kane et al. For further perspective on the need for empathy training across healthcare professions, click here.
The Fat Kitchen, an Allegory; painting by Pieter Aertsen / Google Arts & Culture
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February 18, 2025
