Caitlin O'Reilly

From Theory to Policy: Reducing Harms Associated with the Weight-Centered Health Paradigm

This article provides an overview of harms associated with public policy promotion of the weight-centered health paradigm and suggests that a shift away from weight-centered health policies is required. Given the evidence about the negative health implications of weight-centric health policies, the objectives are to explore why public policy officials uncritically rely on and promote the weight-centered health paradigm and to propose policy alternatives. Based on findings from discourse analysis of “obesity”-related 1 policy documents, public health policy solutions to the weight-centered health paradigm are proposed and analyzed, drawing from ten key informant interviews with stakeholders working within the policy, academic, and medical contexts.

Why fat suits do not advance the scientific study of weight stigma

TO THE EDITOR: Although the topic of weight stigma has received increased scholarly attention in recent years, it remains a nascent area of research, with experimental methodologies to discern causal relationships still being explored and developed. However, the recent trend of using “fat suits” in this research, such as in the study by Incollingo Rodriguez et al. (1), raises serious methodological and ethical questions.