June 20, 2021 — We have a problem in healthcare. It’s really quite simple. Health systems have grown better at delivering health services than they are at delivering health care. It’s worse for people living with obesity, because prevailing bias leads health professionals to care even less for people with obesity. Add in racism and the problem grows larger […]
June 6, 2021 — Health stigma is sneaky. Because of that, it pops up in places where we never expect it. For example, we find the wellness section of the New York Times offering advice to dump friends with depression or obesity. Obesity researchers use stigmatizing cartoons to tell us about their good work. Perhaps these people don’t even […]
June 1, 2021 — Weight stigma is not just a U.S. problem. A whole series of new studies – two of them coming out just today – tell us that weight stigma is common across six countries. Not only do people find it in personal relationships, but they even find it common in healthcare. In fact, two thirds of […]
May 28, 2021 — At AACE2021 yesterday, Fatima Cody Stanford, Patty Nece, and Ted Kyle drove a simple point home. It’s time to take weight bias out of healthcare. It harms health, amplifies health disparities, and gets in the way whenever someone living with obesity needs care. But solutions are within reach. Proper training for healthcare professionals can do […]
March 21, 2021 — “You can’t lift people up by putting them down.” As part of a series on the future of advocacy, this is how Trabian Shorters explains the importance of asset framing – building upon a community’s assets. But too often, we start with the deficits. Shorters points this out in the context of racial justice. It […]
March 16, 2021 — Bias and stigma are not confined to obesity. And in fact, a considerable body of research tells us that far too many people with diabetes experience it and it is greatest in people who require insulin, have more difficulty controlling the disease, and have a higher BMI. Though stigma can be a problem for people […]
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 […]
January 17, 2021 — Appearance has come to dominate our concept of what is healthy. And in turn, our culture links both appearance and health to virtue. Thus, when Cosmopolitan invites 11 women with wildly different appearances to describe their personal journeys to good health, Twitter has a fit. The cardinal sin seems to be declaring This Is Healthy! […]
October 4, 2020 — The talk about obesity in the UK is drifting away from a full and constructive view. Instead, it has moved toward a more narrow view of personal responsibility. These findings come from a new analysis by Paul Baker and colleagues. Over ten years following the landmark Foresight Report, reporting about obesity in the British press […]
September 16, 2020 — Bad obesity policies can be worse than nothing at all. You might ask, how can this be? The U.K. obesity strategy provides a case in point. No doubt, the intentions are good. High rates of obesity make the population of the U.K. vulnerable to especially bad outcomes from COVID-19. But flashing danger signs without giving […]
