October 24, 2024 — This week, we are in Montreal for the International Weight Bias Summit at Concordia University. A host of organizations committed to better strategies, policies, and care for people living with obesity are supporting this effort. Leading into the summit is the launch this week of a new and improved bias-free obesity image gallery at HLTH […]
October 14, 2024 — Are we on the way to ending weight stigma or is it more stubbornly persistent than we might imagine? We found a clue to the persistence of bias in health professionals in a new commentary published by the Washington Post. From his perch at the Harvard Medical School, Dr. Preston Lee writes: “Like many doctors, […]
September 20, 2024 — This year, the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award recognizes research on GLP-1 receptor biology that is revolutionizing obesity medicine. This is a revolution that is sending shockwaves through all of healthcare and indeed through society. Revolutions are uncomfortable and many people look at progress such as this with regretful nostalgia or outright fear. So we […]
August 26, 2024 — New research reminds us of something that just about any person living with obesity can tell you. The prevailing bias against people living with obesity favors medical neglect. Especially for someone living with significant obesity, it is all too common to have providers dismiss medical complaints or blame them on obesity and simply instruct the […]
May 15, 2024 — The symposium that packed an auditorium at ECO2024 yesterday dealt with the fundamental need to get beyond BMI for defining clinical obesity. It seems so simple. “Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health,” says the World Health Organization. And yet that definition ties back to BMI for […]
March 29, 2024 — A fascinating new study is prompting some very clickable headlines this week. It is all about the interaction of genetic risk for obesity and physical activity. It shows that in people with higher genetic risk scores for obesity, the association between physical activity (using daily step counts as a surrogate) and BMI is different than […]
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 […]
March 8, 2024 — Today, we are putting a bow on Obesity Care Week by coming back to a root problem that gets in the way of reducing the harm of obesity – stigma. It causes psychological distress for the people living with this disease and leads them to avoid medical care. Explicit weight bias has become less acceptable […]
December 9, 2023 — Yesterday, we had the opportunity to offer (and gain) perspective on stigma and discrimination related to obesity. It came in the rich context of a three hour discussion on “Ethics, Equity, and Stigma in Obesity Treatment and Policy.” The Division of Medical Ethics of NYU School of Medicine co-sponsored the discussion with the Comprehensive Program […]
October 17, 2023 — “You’re either invisible, or the answer is to lose weight, even with mental health.” This is the sentiment that surfaced at OW2023 in research of lived experiences from people coping with both obesity and needing treatment for mental health concerns. It becomes acutely important as we learn that drug trials for conditions other than obesity […]
