Posts Tagged ‘blame and shame’

Trash Talk About Obesity and Food

May 19, 2024 — Food policy advocates are sharing a music video that captures a certain way of thinking. The choruses are nothing but trash talk about obesity and food. “It’s your own damn fault,” says one verse. In the next, “a team of evil scientists through rigorous testing created the most abominable snacks.” So it draws us into […]

Report Card on Our 2022 Trend Predictions

December 31, 2022 — “It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” With this anonymous piece of wisdom in mind, it still makes sense to take a moment to look back at the trends that we hoped and expected to shape the year we complete today. So here’s a narrative report card on our 2022 trend predictions. You, […]

The Gap Between Science and Culture in Obesity

November 22, 2022 — This is a note of gratitude to Julia Belluz. In a guest essay for the New York Times, she writes beautifully and accessibly about a great gap. It is the gap between science and popular culture in the matter of obesity. She does it while reporting on the recent Royal Society meeting about the causes […]

Five Trends to Shape 2022 in Health and Obesity

December 31, 2021 — Looking toward a new year gives us time to think about what we want and what we don’t for our lives in the year ahead. Make no mistake, the list that follows does not come from an oracle with any assurance these things must be true. But our expectations can indeed shape our futures because […]

Taking the Mic to Destigmatize Obesity

October 8, 2021 — 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 […]

Blame and Shame for Suffering: Obesity and COVID

September 4, 2021 — Suffering creates a vacuum. But health stigma is always ready to fill that vacuum, so blame and shame flow in and amplify the suffering. This has long been the case with obesity. We’re now seeing it come into play with COVID and even with the intersection of COVID and obesity. This is called blaming the […]

Shame Gets a Failing Grade for Health Promotion

July 28, 2021 — Is it helpful to use shame for health promotion? The impulse is certainly strong. Shame and blame have been consistent threads through years of grappling with the health impact of obesity. Along the same line, we’re seeing shame and blame trotted out for the unvaccinated in the U.S. as a the Delta variant produces a […]

Weight Stigma: Mark, Label, Threat, and Blame

December 3, 2019 — How do people with obesity – or any other health condition – become stigmatized? It turns out that words are very important for weight stigma. In Communication Theory, Professor Rachel Smith offers us powerful insight with a classic paper. Four elements are critical. Thus, we should be careful about letting those elements creep into the […]

Obesity: A Disease and a Debate for Pets, Too

June 30, 2019 — Obesity is quite a problem for pets as well as humans, so a growing number of veterinary medicine organizations are developing guidance on the subject. Around the world, 25 international medical veterinary organizations have endorsed the position of the Global Pet Obesity Initiative. In short, veterinarians around the world are recognizing that obesity is a […]