Non-Huffington-Post links coming up!
45% of USA adults remain worried about their weight.
For 3-6yo girls, it’s more than 50%.
Between 35% and 75% of medically obese people are metabolically healthy. No high blood pressure, no insulin resistance, no high cholesterol.
Thin people are twice as likely as fat people to get diabetes.
Doctors have shorter appointments with fat people, and check them less. They also show less emotional rapport - often accusing fat patients of being “noncompliant”, “overindulgent”, or “weak willed”.
Migraine-related doctors believe that fat patients “had a worse attitude and were less likely to follow their advice“, compared to thin patients. Yes, this applies when the ONLY difference between fat and thin patients was that the former were fat.
In 2011, 14% of all OB-GYNs in South Florida barred access to all patients above 200 pounds, regardless of any other reason.
Thin doctors are more confident in their recommendations, expect their patients to lose more weight and are more likely to think dieting is easy. This is regardless of knowledge about fatness and weight loss.
Medical students get a minuscule amount of hours of study about fat people.
Fat people don’t get much medical help beyond “lose weight”. And I don’t mean they get prescribed specific diets or exercise regimens - out of 100 patients who ask about diets and weight loss, only 13 got any specific plan for diet or exercise, and only 5 got help arranging a follow-up visit. Even when doctors want fat patients to lose weight, they do a shitty job at it - and then blame the patients.
Looking at high-weight Americans who wanted to lose weight, for every person who received counseling from a dietician, 2 were instead directed towards meal-replacement diets - the kind of diet most likely to fail.
21% of hiring managers believe that a fat woman is automatically unprofessional, and will not hire her. This despite knowing NOTHING about her professionality.
89% of obese adults were bullied by their romantic partners. And this is a problem if you want fat people to lose weight, because fat shaming causes weight GAIN.
The effects of weight bias get worse when they’re layered on top of other types of discrimination. African-American women are more likely to become depressed after internalizing weight stigma than white women.
Hispanic and black teenagers have significantly higher rates of bulimia, compared to white teenagers.
The problem with eating and health is not how much we eat, nor fatness; it’s what we eat. For example, fructose damages insulin sensitivity and liver, while nuts seem to protect against diabetes.
The decisive factor in the care of obese patients is not the diet patients went on, but how much attention and support they received while they were on it. Again: if you want fat people to lose weight, don’t fat shame.
School-based physical activity programs don’t make kids lose weight, but they DO improve athletic ability, encourages them to exercise, and improves their scolastic ability.