Tag: bias

Why I Am an Advocate for Weight Loss Surgery

I already write with some regularity about weight loss surgery but some issues have arisen this week that prompt me to write yet again! For people with 100 lbs or more to lose, it’s a reality of life now that their doctor will talk to them about weight loss surgery and/or they will consider it …

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Weight Bias is Limiting Access to Weight Loss Surgery

I read an article today written by a doctor who found himself examining his sense of bias when he was faced with a 600 lb patient in the emergency room. Nurses and technicians around him made snide remarks and a surgeon made it clear he wanted to find a way to foist the patient off …

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The Real Way the Media Promotes Fat Shaming (and every other kind of shaming)

Dovima 1950s model

NBC’s Today Show is doing a week-long “Love Your Selfie” with the extremely attractive personalities admitting their self-image insecurities and appearing without makeup. The men look pretty much like themselves and the women just look plain around their eyes. Everyone is still their media-quality good-looking selves. We’ve been treated to the team’s dorkiest teenage photos …

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Food Insecurity and Obesity: The Paradox that Affects More Than Just the Poor

Food Insecurity and obesity

Why is there a correlation between food insecurity and obesity? It appears to be a paradox; is it really? I was directed today to an insightful infographic posted on the blog of Registered Dietitian Brooke Schantz. At the bottom of this post, I’ve placed the “Nourish to Flourish” infographic from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. …

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Is It Support? Or Fat Shaming?

I hate this weight loss book so much I won’t even tell you what its title is. I’m capable of relating only briefly what makes this book so abysmal. It is an example of what I see as a particularly insidious form of fat shaming—that which originates from what is presented as “support.” Let’s start …

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Criticism of Weight Loss Surgery is Vicious Fat Shaming

weight loss surgery

Why should anyone care if someone else has weight loss surgery? It would not seem to be loaded with the controversial moral implications that complicate other healthcare issues like abortion, birth control, or euthanasia. There aren’t any religious admonitions against losing weight. So why all the scathing blog posts, militant opposition, and vitriolic criticism? “It’s …

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Biggest Loser is Oblivious to Its Failures

It’s simply naive to believe that NBC’s “Biggest Loser” is about “changing lives.” It’s got to be the most heavily merchandised television show in history. From $3000-per-week “resorts” and cruises to in-show commercials and a broad range of branded products, it’s a money machine that exploits the public’s fascination with watching presumably broken and messed …

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Letting Go of a Relationship with Food

Whenever anyone talks about “emotional eating” they will inevitably say something about a “relationship with food.” If you have a weight problem, that is supposed to mean you treat food like it’s the best friend you desperately need to lean on and you’re hangin’ out together constantly. We’re told that we subconsciously invest food with …

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Did Elle Magazine Cover Up Melissa McCarthy on Purpose?

Melissa McCarthy Bridesmaids

Melissa McCarthy is one of six cover models for Elle magazine’s annual “Women of Hollywood” issue. Much has been made of the fact that Melissa is shrouded in an oversize coat while five other stars show a lot more skin in their respective covers. Reese Witherspoon, whose most recent star turn was a drunken performance …

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Mocked for Being Too Thin? What It Says About Fat Shaming

In an interview with HuffPostLive, television personality Giuliana Rancic describes how she endures taunts for her extreme thinness in social media. The interviewer seems to be suggesting that Rancic is very thin as a result of having battled cancer but she looks about the same today as she did before her diagnosis. Rancic wants to …

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