Weight stigma is likely to drive weight gain and poor health and thus should be eradicated. This effort can begin by training compassionate and knowledgeable healthcare providers who will deliver better care and ultimately lessen the negative effects of weight stigma.

A quantitative review of one year of national news coverage (Dec. 1, 2021 - Nov. 30, 2022) found that a mere 48 articles about anti-fatness were written or published by traditional news sources, and only 24 spoke about fat liberation or justice in any way. Meanwhile, traditional news sources featured over 18,000 articles focused on covering weight loss.

Part 3 of 3

So what we typically see with dieting is that people make behavior changes. After those changes are made, those folks often see health improvements, and sometimes see a small amount of weight loss (at least in the short-term.) Even though the weight loss is small, and often largely simultaneous with the health improvements, the weight loss gets credited with the health changes, rather than seeing both the health changes and the (at least short-term) small amount of weight loss as resulting from the behavior changes.

Giving the credit to weight loss, rather than the initial behavior change, drives a lot of profit to the weight loss industry, but drives a lot of harm to fat patients.