A team of national experts led by Rebecca Pearl, Ph.D., an associate professor of clinical and health psychology in the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions, has published a call-to-action for researchers and clinicians working in obesity.
“Ending Weight Stigma to Advance Health Equity,” which appears in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, lays out a research agenda and clinical recommendations designed to help scientists and providers consider and examine weight stigma more closely in their work. Negative judgment, discrimination and other forms of mistreatment against people with obesity are harmful to mental and physical health and may exacerbate health disparities for individuals from marginalized groups.
The authors emphasize the need for more research to understand how weight interacts with a person’s other marginalized identities to affect their health and health care, and greater recognition of weight stigma, especially as part of efforts to reduce health disparities and to achieve health equity for all.
“Disparities in obesity and its related conditions may result in part from systemic inequities that could be addressed by targeting structural and social determinants,” the authors write. “These factors include place-based environmental conditions that shape eating and physical activity patterns, healthcare access, stress, and behavioral opportunities to manage obesity effectively. Weight stigma is less commonly recognized as a social determinant of health, which contributes to health disparities while remaining largely unaddressed in public health.”