April 29, 2024 — What does it take to change the explicit and implicit bias that people have about others and themselves based solely upon body weight or fatness? New research tells us that we should pay attention to cognitive dissonance. In other words, we should be asking, does our weight bias reflect our beliefs? Or is there a […]
May 22, 2023 — Despite a great deal of progress in recognizing weight bias and stigma, many challenges remain in overcoming it. Explicit expressions of weight bias no longer get a free pass. So they are becoming less common. But implicit weight bias is as strong as ever. Perhaps even more challenging is the weight bias that people direct […]
October 28, 2022 — Medical ethicist Arthur Caplan is struggling. On one hand, he knows shaming people with obesity is clearly wrong. But while he rejects outright shame for people with obesity, he’s struggling with with the idea of acceptance. He decided to talk about this because he was watching the Emmy Awards and Lizzo came on. “For those […]
August 15, 2022 — Obesity is a slow burn. It erodes a person’s health over time, causing other diseases and an earlier death. In contrast, the harm of weight bias and stigma is immediate. First, there is the everyday onslaught of dehumanizing treatment one receives. A constant barrage of insults and slights creates stress that chips away at both […]
March 5, 2022 — As we come to the end of OCW2022, we come to face a basic question: why does it matter? Why do we care about obesity care? The answer is quite simple, really. Science tells us that obesity is a complex, chronic condition driven by our physiology. Yet our culture and even our healthcare systems do […]
March 2, 2022 — For OCW2022 today, Rebecca Puhl and Ted Kyle take on a tough question: can we put an end to weight bias? In answer to that question, there’s both good news and bad news, highlighted in a new video release today. First the Good News Without a doubt, awareness of weight bias has grown over the […]
September 17, 2021 — For some time, it’s been clear to mental health professionals that social media could be a problem for teens. Facebook, which owns Instagram, has long minimized the issue. But reporting this week from the Wall Street Journal tells suggests that Facebook knows from its own research that Instagram promotes self-stigma for teenage girls. Slides from […]
