The Health-Care Cost of Weight Bias
At a recent obesity medicine conference, Fatima Cody Stanford was approached by a colleague who said she’d always been standoffish around Stanford and wanted to explain why. When they were five years old, she said, taking a dance class together, Stanford had told her she was fat.
“Part of me died inside. I see myself as an ally for those with overweight and obesity, and I influenced her whole life by my comment,” said Stanford, the keynote speaker on weight bias and health at the third annual Breaking the Silence symposium, held March 29 on the Boston Health Sciences campus.
“We don’t realize what we’re saying can have huge implications for how people carry out their lives,” said Stanford, an obesity medicine physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Weight Center. That lesson informed her talk, using the terms “people with overweight” and “people with obesity” instead of “overweight people” or “obese people.” “Stating ‘obese person’ sets up a stigma before you begin the conversation,” she said.