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 18, 2023 — We can’t miss it. Everywhere we turn, certain people are busy clucking about the health choices that other people make. Politicians see an opportunity to stir up their followers with talk about the health of transgender youth. Women’s health, especially regarding pregnancy, is a political hot button. On top of that, meddlers have lately become […]
June 6, 2023 — Believe it or not, there was a time when MYOB was a more ubiquitous acronym than WTF. But it seems that we are presently more apt to express dismay at the behavior of others than to advise someone to mind their own business. Especially in health, MYOB seems to have disappeared from our vocabulary. Oddly […]
April 27, 2023 — “There’s a huge fatphobia problem in the eating disorder world,” says Shira Rosenbluth. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, an eating disorder therapist, and has her own life experiences with eating disorders. Obesity and eating disorders can appear in the same patients and some research would suggest they frequently do. But for each of […]
March 25, 2023 — New research in BMC Public Health raises important questions. Does news media frame obesity care for young persons in a way that promotes stigma? Does this reflect the bias of the media itself? Or does it play to the bias of the public that consumes this reporting? Thematic Analysis of Reporting from 2014 to 2022 […]
February 10, 2023 — We are in the midst of a fundamental change in the understanding of obesity. Years of hand-wringing – with urgent calls to eat less and move more – promoted weight stigma more than it reduced obesity prevalence. To counter this, the trademarked Health at Every Size (HAES) movement rose up to call out the mistake […]
