July 16, 2023 — A new essay in the AMA Journal of Ethics raises a surprising question. Should obesity be an unmentionable health condition? Does its diagnosis do more harm than good? Kristen Hardy writes instead about healthcare for fat people. She does not like the diagnosis of obesity because, she writes, “‘excess weight’ is a myth. Fat people […]
June 11, 2023 — Health stigma presents a difficult problem because it prompts competing human impulses of cruelty and denial. Together, these impulses get in the way of better health. Attach stigma to a disease or a health condition and the people who have it begin to feel socially undesirable and isolated. So understandably, they may hide the condition, […]
April 18, 2023 — Consider these two competing headlines. In the Washington Post, Kate Cohen tells us “It’s time to cancel diet culture.” Then with a press release about new papers in Nature Medicine, researchers tell us “Most new Type 2 diabetes cases attributable to suboptimal diet.” It’s a fascinating mashup of causality, attribution, and diet culture. On one […]
March 19, 2023 — People want to be seen and heard. To feel like they matter. But in research and policy related to obesity, this fact was long neglected for many reasons. The principal reasons have much to do with stigma and the explicit dehumanization of people with this disease. With explicit efforts to overcome these issues, we see […]
January 13, 2023 — “I weep.” So says a fat acceptance and eating disorder advocate who is agitated because of the guideline that emerged when the American Academy of Pediatrics spent five years analyzing reams of research on pediatric obesity, options for care, and the outcomes from that care. “Come on,” says one dietitian to another. “If you want […]
August 30, 2022 — We are living in a profoundly disorienting time. Because of this, we are learning that people have the capacity to rationionalize just about anything. People are plunging into rabbit holes where they encounter mazes of rationalizations about conspiracies all around them. It’s a great tool for politicians who find themselves on shaky ground. But now […]
August 28, 2022 — It’s either depressing or enlightening. When the subject of body weight comes up in pop culture, it brings us into an evidence-free zone. Pop diets compete with anti-diets. Obsessive diet regimens compete with people telling us that we should fuggedaboutit and move on to intuitive eating. Eat whatever your body tells you it wants in […]
July 27, 2022 — It’s a lot. Writing for USA Today, Karen Weintraub has produced a deep dive into diverse thinking about the complexity of obesity. If you thought USA Today was a place for McNuggets* of superficial reporting, think again. In six parts, with more than 18,000 words, Weintraub has done quite well in painting a picture of […]
May 29, 2022 — 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 […]
April 17, 2022 — Obesity is a slur. This statement framed the opening to a recent symposium at the UC Berkeley School of Public health. The subject was weight inclusive public health. The goal was dialogue to address systemic anti-fatness and racism embedded in public health, medicine, and the food system. It’s a lot. On one hand a caricature of […]
