The hottest Fat Activism Substack posts right now

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Top Health & Wellness Topics

The Scientifically Shaky Definitions of "Obesity"

Weight and Healthcare • 958 implied HN points • 27 Mar 24
🏥 Health & Wellness Obesity Health Issues Body positivity Weight loss industry Fat Activism
  1. The weight loss industry manipulates the definitions of obesity to suit their profit-driven agenda, claiming it as a disease and influencing healthcare elements.
  2. Common definitions of obesity by organizations like the CDC and NIH raise questions about objectivity and scientific accuracy in diagnosing obesity.
  3. The push by the weight loss industry to expand the market for weight loss drugs raises concerns about pathologizing higher-weight bodies and the need to shift away from a weight-centric paradigm.

Physician Demonstrates Medical Weight Stigma and Bias

Weight and Healthcare • 958 implied HN points • 06 Dec 23
🏥 Health & Wellness Weight Stigma Fat Activism Body positivity
  1. Weight stigma and bias in healthcare can impact fat people, leading to unequal treatment and discrimination.
  2. Healthcare providers should focus on finding solutions to accommodate and care for fat patients instead of blaming and stigmatizing them.
  3. Fat people deserve equal rights, healthcare, and the right to celebrate their bodies regardless of their size or health conditions.

Not Blaming Fat People For Failed Weight Loss Isn't Enough

Weight and Healthcare • 738 implied HN points • 23 Aug 23
🏥 Health & Wellness Weight Loss Healthcare Weight Stigma Fat Activism Body positivity
  1. Healthcare practitioners often blame and shame fat patients for failed intentional weight loss, creating barriers to compassionate care.
  2. The weight loss industry acknowledges the failure of behavioral weight loss interventions, but their push for risky methods like drugs and surgeries is dangerous.
  3. Instead of blaming fat people for weight loss failure, healthcare should focus on respecting and affirming their humanity while supporting their health.

Letter To Med Students Doing a Weight-Stigma Capstone – Guest Post by Rachel Fox

Weight and Healthcare • 678 implied HN points • 03 Jun 23
🏥 Health & Wellness Weight Stigma Medical education Fat Activism Healthcare
  1. Medical students should re-evaluate weight-stigma projects to make a real impact.
  2. Addressing systemic fat oppression in healthcare requires tangible actions like reviewing curriculum and infrastructure.
  3. Med students possess a unique position to challenge anti-fat practices and bring about meaningful change.
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Study Shows Lack of Link Between High BMI and COVID Deaths

Weight and Healthcare • 698 implied HN points • 22 Mar 23
🏥 Health & Wellness COVID-19 Research Body Weight Health Inequality Fat Activism
  1. Some studies rushed during the pandemic suggested a link between high BMI and COVID deaths, but a recent umbrella review found serious quality concerns with these conclusions.
  2. The study focused on the quality and certainty of the evidence regarding the association between high BMI and COVID mortality.
  3. Healthcare inequalities can impact outcomes for higher-weight individuals, and research often pathologizes body size without fully considering all confounding factors.

Fighting Weight Stigma by Ending Weight Pathologization - Part 2

Weight and Healthcare • 519 implied HN points • 15 Jul 23
🏥 Health & Wellness Weight Stigma Fat Activism Body positivity
  1. The study focused on using qualitative methods to understand weight stigma by involving medical students and fat community members in narrative workshops.
  2. Participants in the study recognized the complexities of weight stigma in healthcare, including the impact of assumptions, power dynamics, and lack of trust in fat patients' stories.
  3. The intervention helped create depathologizing and empathetic interactions, undermining the power dynamic in medical authority and emphasizing the importance of humanizing interactions to combat weight stigma.

Options to Deal With BMI-Based Healthcare Denials - Part 2

Weight and Healthcare • 639 implied HN points • 18 Feb 23
🏥 Health & Wellness Healthcare BMI Weight Stigma Fat Activism
  1. Understanding the reasons behind BMI-based healthcare denials is crucial to decide how to proceed.
  2. Options for dealing with BMI-based healthcare denials include finding different circumstances, fighting the denial, or trying to reach the BMI requirement.
  3. Fighting BMI-based healthcare denials may involve challenging the decision, seeking support, and exploring counterarguments to address the reasons given for denial.

The Problem With Weight Stigma Research

Weight and Healthcare • 459 implied HN points • 18 Jan 23
🏥 Health & Wellness Weight Stigma Fat Activism Research
  1. Weight stigma research is often based on the idea that fatness is bad and should be eradicated, influenced by profit interests from the weight loss industry.
  2. Weight stigma in research sometimes suggests weight loss as a solution to oppression, erasing the experiences of those at the highest weights and promoting harmful weight bias.
  3. Erasure of experiences of highest-weight individuals in research impacts healthcare practices and treatment outcomes, highlighting the need for weight-inclusive perspectives in research.

Ghosts of Diet Culture Yet to Come

Weight and Healthcare • 419 implied HN points • 31 Dec 22
🏥 Health & Wellness Diet Culture Weight Stigma Healthcare Industry Fat Activism Body positivity
  1. Push back against the diet industry's attempts to frame higher weight as a chronic health condition.
  2. Refuse to participate in and call out the co-option of anti-weight stigma language by the diet industry to sell products.
  3. Support creating a culture shift away from harmful diet culture practices and work towards stopping the weight loss industry.

Doesn't Being Higher Weight Create Higher Risk for Health Issues?

Weight and Healthcare • 559 implied HN points • 22 Jun 22
🏥 Health & Wellness Research Methods Body positivity Fat Activism
  1. Correlation between weight and health doesn't imply causation, and it's crucial to examine the quality of evidence before drawing conclusions.
  2. Factors like weight stigma, weight cycling, and healthcare inequalities can influence the relationship between weight and health.
  3. Supporting health doesn't always need manipulation of body size, and it's essential to prioritize the rights of individuals regardless of their size.

Ways We Might Be Unintentionally Participating In Weight Stigma and Diet Culture

Weight and Healthcare • 399 implied HN points • 01 Oct 22
🏥 Health & Wellness Weight Stigma Diet Culture Fat Activism Healthcare Self-reflection
  1. Complimenting Weight Lost can reinforce harmful beliefs and set people up for disappointment when weight is regained.
  2. Supporting Inequality by expecting fat individuals to change themselves for healthcare tools is harmful and unfair.
  3. Avoid hypocritical behavior and Blaming Fat Bodies, healthcare practitioners should practice weight-neutral health for all patients, regardless of size.

Weight Loss Sales Pitches Are Not Informed Consent Conversations

Weight and Healthcare • 399 implied HN points • 07 Sep 22
🏥 Health & Wellness Weight Loss Informed consent Fat Activism Body positivity
  1. Healthcare practitioners should provide informed consent, including risks and failure rates, instead of aggressively marketing weight loss interventions.
  2. Red flags for healthcare providers selling weight loss include not mentioning alternative options, minimizing risks, and promoting commercial weight loss programs.
  3. Using neutral language like 'fat' instead of medicalized terms like 'obese' is important in discussions about weight and health.

Reader Question - What's the Difference Between Fat Activists and the Diet Industry?

Weight and Healthcare • 459 implied HN points • 08 Jun 22
🏥 Health & Wellness Body positivity Diet Industry Weight Stigma Fat Activism Healthcare
  1. The main difference between fat activists and the diet industry is their ultimate goals: Fat activists aim to end the weight-centric paradigm to affirm and accommodate fat individuals, while the diet industry seeks profit and perpetuates harmful practices.
  2. Fat activists focus on making information accessible without money as a barrier, prioritizing helping people over profit. In contrast, the diet industry prioritizes profit margins and is willing to take risks that harm fat individuals for financial gain.
  3. The approach to health by fat activists is grounded in thorough research, whereas the diet industry often pathologizes body size, creates misleading studies, and makes errors in correlation vs. causation analysis.

How to Spot the Dangerous "Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner" Approach to Weight Stigma

Weight and Healthcare • 259 implied HN points • 05 Oct 22
🏥 Health & Wellness Weight Stigma Fat Activism Body Image Healthcare Industry
  1. Identifying the 'Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner' Approach to Weight Stigma involves recognizing when people suggest fat individuals pursue weight loss despite claiming to be against stigmatizing.
  2. Spotting those promoting anti-weight stigma may involve noting if they pathologize higher-weight bodies, claim weight stigma hinders weight loss efforts, or suggest weight loss as a solution to stigma.
  3. Vigilance is required to discern genuine anti-stigma advocates from those affiliated with the weight loss industry or who only reference pseudo-anti-stigma work.

The Pure Folly of Claiming Weight Loss Is An Anti-Weight Stigma Measure

Weight and Healthcare • 239 implied HN points • 29 Oct 22
🏥 Health & Wellness Weight Stigma Fat Activism Diet Industry Health Risks Lobbying
  1. Promoting weight loss as an anti-weight stigma measure is harmful and misguided.
  2. The weight loss industry often tries to frame weight loss as a solution to weight stigma, but it is not a genuine anti-stigma action.
  3. Misinformation sponsored by the weight loss industry can lead to misunderstanding about fighting against weight stigma.

Reader Question - What Does It Mean For Weight To Be A Risk Factor?

Weight and Healthcare • 299 implied HN points • 03 Aug 22
🏥 Health & Wellness Fat Activism Health Studies Weight Stigma
  1. A risk factor for a health issue increases the risk but doesn't necessarily cause it. This distinction between correlation and causation is crucial in understanding health impacts.
  2. Research often neglects to consider factors like weight stigma, weight cycling, and healthcare inequalities when discussing the health impacts of being overweight, leading to inaccurate conclusions.
  3. Using verbiage like 'risk factor for' should prompt questions about causality and the influence of other societal factors like racism, highlighting the importance of critical analysis in interpreting health information.

Inclusive Language For Higher-Weight People

Weight and Healthcare • 379 implied HN points • 03 Nov 21
🏥 Health & Wellness Body positivity Weight Stigma Fat Activism
  1. Obese and overweight are terms with harmful histories, rooted in racism, and should be retired.
  2. Person First Language may actually increase stigma for higher-weight people by implying shame in accurate descriptions of body size.
  3. Using neutral terms like 'higher-weight' and 'larger-bodied' is recommended to describe this population without pathologizing or euphemizing.

Does Fatness Really Cost the Workplace $73 Billion a Year? A Weight Loss Company Wants You To Think So

Weight and Healthcare • 239 implied HN points • 12 Mar 22
🏥 Health & Wellness Weight Science Diet Industry Obesity Fat Activism
  1. A weight loss company used a study to push for lap band surgeries by exaggerating the cost of workplace 'fatness'.
  2. The study funding source being a pharmaceutical company raised concerns about biased results.
  3. Issues in the study include unreliable self-reported data, flawed statistical analysis, and assumptions linking productivity loss to weight.

Novo Nordisk Delivers Weight Stigma to Grand Nursing Rounds

Weight and Healthcare • 159 implied HN points • 20 Nov 21
🏥 Health & Wellness Weight Stigma Pharmaceutical industry Healthcare Fat Activism
  1. Novo Nordisk's campaign to end weight stigma is seen as disingenuous, as they profit from selling weight loss drugs.
  2. Novo Nordisk coordinated a workshop titled 'Grand Nursing Rounds Obesity,' which perpetuated weight stigma and fat jokes in healthcare.
  3. Research shows that weight stigma is prevalent among healthcare practitioners, with a significant percentage feeling uncomfortable caring for obese patients.

Higher-Weight Patients and Fertility

Weight and Healthcare • 79 implied HN points • 23 Mar 22
🏥 Health & Wellness Fertility Weight Fat Activism Weight Loss Reproductive Rights
  1. Many assumptions about fertility and weight loss for higher-weight patients are incorrect, as evidence shows mixed results and the focus should be on health-promoting behaviors rather than weight loss.
  2. Weight stigma and weight cycling have negative impacts on fertility and health, leading to difficulties in accessing proper care and creating additional stress for fat individuals seeking fertility support.
  3. Intentional weight loss through dieting may actually have negative effects on fertility outcomes, with studies showing no significant improvement in live birth rates and potential harm to egg quality and fertilization.

The National Weight Control Registry's Shaky Science

Weight and Healthcare • 2 HN points • 15 Oct 22
🏥 Health & Wellness Weight Loss Research Methods Interventions Fat Activism
  1. The National Weight Control Registry's definition of weight loss success may not accurately represent the reality of weight loss maintenance.
  2. The NWCR's findings do not conclusively disprove the idea that weight loss attempts fail about 95% of the time.
  3. The NWCR's suggested behaviors for weight loss maintenance lack specificity and may not be effective for the general population.