November 21, 2019 — I’ve had obesity since early childhood. This is my story of living with it. In my immigrant Italian family, chubby children were considered “healthy,” a sign of “making it.” I was lovingly, but, unwittingly, overfed. Up until my early 20s, nothing worked to control my dietary intake or for lasting fat loss. I knew back […]
November 9, 2019 — We’ve had our full dose of Las Vegas. But ObesityWeek has given us more to think about than shows and casinos. With record attendance of 5,800, it was more than any one person could absorb. No doubt, everyone has returned home with a different experience from ObesityWeek. So here are our ten top take-home messages. […]
September 24, 2019 — A professor of pediatrics was visiting patients with her medical students. They saw a patient, a teen with class III obesity that had begun at a very early age. One of her students asked, don’t her parents know their daughter needs to eat healthy and stay active? Another said, it’s terrible what the food industry […]
September 3, 2019 — Yesterday in Copenhagen, ten outstanding advocates for people living with obesity gathered. They came from all over Europe and North America. And for a little over two hours, they presented compelling personal stories about their lived experiences with the disease. These DEEP talks draw upon Disease Experience Expert Panels that Novo Nordisk assembles to guide […]
August 13, 2019 — The o-word has long been a problem. “Obesity” is a medical term that is more than just off-putting. It’s a stigmatizing diagnosis. Even worse is labeling people as “obese.” That’s not OK. Most people with obesity will tell you that they might have some excess weight, but obesity has nothing to do with them. Thus […]
April 25, 2019 — At the sixth Canadian Obesity Summit on Wednesday, three of Canada’s top experts on weight bias presented diverse views on taking action against weight bias. The focus ranged from reducing bias in new healthcare providers to internalized bias and health at every size. Though these experts brought diverse perspectives, they shared a common focus. Reducing […]
March 24, 2019 — In the March issue of Bariatric Times, two outstanding advocates for obesity care take a hard look at weight stigma and offer a solution. “We have met the enemy and it is us,” say Paul Davidson and Pamela Davis. Health professionals contribute to stigma and thus, they can lead in overcoming it. The #1 Source […]
September 15, 2018 — Language unites us and divides us. Certainly, this is true for the language of obesity. A new study in JAMA Surgery tells us that patients seeking bariatric surgery don’t like people calling them fat. Nor do they like people calling them obese. Instead, they give higher marks to the language of having a high BMI […]
July 23, 2018 — Unfortunately, this is a conversation that doesn’t happen very often. By this, we mean talking to your healthcare provider about obesity care. In fact, Andrew Stokes and colleagues found that only about ten percent of people with obesity talk to any healthcare provider about it. Only four percent actually talk to a doctor. And talking […]
December 22, 2017 — On the subject of obesity, one way or another, it takes only seconds. Almost always, the subject of personal responsibility will claim its central role. To some people, it’s even a key tool for allocating scarce medical resources. But with a new paper in the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Sven Ove Hansson helps us […]
