Weight Stigma in Health Care – Online Course with Aunt Amelia

For those of us in large bodies, “what are we going to do about the weight?” is a perennial question from health care providers. It is somehow meant to be collaborative, yet always falls short.

• It is a question that immediately blames body size and the person in the body for any concerns
• It is a question that is full of assumptions about “what can and SHOULD be done” about fat bodies
• The inquisitor generally has made a lot of assumptions and generalizations about the patient due to appearance or BMI alone, and may well be responding from deeply ingrained bias, both conscious and unconscious

What if all those assumptions and generalizations are essentially wrong and are doing a disservice to your patients, clients, or yourself?

Join me to explore this questions and many others in a new online course – “What Are We Going to Do About the Weight?” Weight Stigma in Health Care now available from the good people at Healwell.org.

https://online.healwell.org/courses/weight-stigma

Being afforded the opportunity to create an online training about weight stigma and how it shows up in medicine was a gift and a challenge. I strongly prefer my medicine with a foundation in research and science. Sadly, much of health care around large bodies is not based in quality science and more often based on bias and poor science built to reinforce stereotypes.  Knowing this, my goal was to provide a lot of research and data to support the statements I would be making about weight stigma and the harm it does in health care.

I’ve got years in with the very personal side of this work, and it is a very deep wound as well. I did not expect that reading all those papers and research would be so re-traumatizing, painful, and maddening. Even in research that is supportive of my premise, the language, assumptions, and healthism run rampant. It took me a lot longer to create this because it called me to self-compassion and deepening my trust in my body.

At a time when blaming the person and their body for all sorts of poor health outcomes seems to be the real epidemic, I invite you to join me and learn more about weight stigma and its impact in health care. This online video course is designed for those who provide health care, as well as those in large bodies who access it as well as their allies.

During the month of April 2021 I will also be participating in the Healwell community and providing insights and info during a month long conversation about weight stigma. The community brings together compassionate, self-aware health care providers who are actively participating or are interested in participating in interdisciplinary care to have honest, uncomfortable conversations about topics like access, racism, death, ageism, ableism, and equity that address the intersection of being a human being and providing quality care, so that we can expand our impact, confidently navigate new challenges, and together create lasting, sustainable changes in health care. Learn more and join me here. (affiliate link)