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It's currently #nationalobesityweek. This week, our trainee psychologist Clare led a CPD session on the impact of weight stigma & discrimination. How can psychological science help us improve healthcare for people with a higher BMI? 
Firstly, you might be interested to know that pointing out someone's weight is counterproductive. Weight stigma predicts future weight gain independent of baseline BMI (Tomiyama et al., 2018)​.
People experiencing weight stigma are also less likely to exercise (Vartanian & Shaprow, 2008)​, more likely to engage in binge eating behaviours (Alimoradi et al., 2019) and to delay treatment seeking for health concerns (Alberga et al., 2019)
Secondly, two recent meta-analyses found more experiences of weight-based stigma and discrimination is associated with increased psychological distress or diminished mental health (Alimoradi et al., 2019; Emmer, Bosnjak & Mata, 2019).
Weight stigma, rather than obesity itself, may be particularly
harmful to mental health and is associated with depressive symptoms, higher anxiety levels, lower self-esteem, social isolation and perceived stress. So what can we do about it?
harmful to mental health and is associated with depressive symptoms, higher anxiety levels, lower self-esteem, social isolation and perceived stress. So what can we do about it?
“most effective & ethical approaches aimed at changing the behaviors & attitudes of those who stigmatize rather than towards the targets of weight stigma. ...training must address weight bias, how it is perpetuated & on its potentially harmful effects” (Tomiyama et al., 2018)