Weight Stigma: Health Implications
The healthcare setting is a typical backdrop for weight stigmatization. Numerous studies have demonstrated that a range of healthcare providers (physicians, nurses, psychologists, dieticians, medical students) hold negative stereotypes and attitudes toward obese patients. Opinions that obese patients are lazy, lacking in self-discipline, dishonest, unintelligent, annoying, and noncompliant with treatment are typical. Moreover, research shows that providers spend less time during appointments and provide less health education with obese patients compared with thinner patients. Obese patients frequently report experiences of weight bias in healthcare, and being disrespected by providers.
Weight stigma also can influence healthcare utilization. Obese persons are less likely to undergo age-appropriate preventive cancer screenings, even when accounting for factors such as education, income, health insurance, and illness burden. Women reported delaying and avoiding medical appointments because of disrespectful treatment and negative attitudes from providers, and embarrassment about being weighed, receiving unsolicited advice to lose weight, and being forced to use medical equipment that is too small to be functional for their body size. The percentage of women reporting these barriers increased with the women's BMIs.
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