Do No Harm Podcast
Summary: Discover how shifting the focus off of weight in health care can greatly improve health outcomes for patients. It is increasingly evident that diets do not work, and that patients of a wide range of sizes can benefit from increasing healthy habits without weight change. With this evidence, we as medical professionals can more effectively and ethically treat our patients by changing how we interact with them around weight. We will explore how to do no harm to our patients of all sizes without recommending weight loss. This podcast is intended for medical professionals, but we welcome all listeners. DeAun Nelson, ND, and guest hosts will discuss relevant topics such as: obesity as defined by BMI, determinants of health, weight stigma, healthism, weight loss, Well Now, Health at Every Size®, Body Trust®, weight science, research, and more. The information in this podcast is not intended to provide medical advice. For more information, visit our website at www.donoharmpodcast.org and you can follow us on Facebook @firstdonoharmpodcast and Instagram, @donoharmpodcast today.
- Visit Website
- RSS
- Artist: DeAun Nelson, ND and Sarah Thompson: Health at Every Size and Patient-Cente
- Copyright: Do No Harm Podcast 2017
Podcasts:
The seventh episode of the podcast will dive into options for treating patients that do not center on weight change. Significant and permanent weight change is nearly impossible for the majority of the population, so we need to use weight independent, evidence based treatment for people of all sizes.
This episode covers the topic of intentional weight loss through restrictive eating or lifestyle changes. We discuss why intentional weight change does not work long term and why it can cause more harm than good for people’s health. I am joined by a guest co-host, Sumner Brooks, RD of Eating Disorder Registered Dietitians & Professionals.
Healthism is prioritizing individual health above other things. It does not acknowledge that a great many things outside of an individual’s affect their health, such as oppression, war, hatred, environmental factors, and access to medical care. The expectation of maintaining a certain level of health can lead to stress and unhealthy coping mechanisms. It is important to look beyond looks and support individual health as much as possible as we dismantle oppression.
Because weight stigma is expressed through weight bias, it is necessary to discuss and examine our own weight bias as medical professionals and medical professionals in training. There is a growing body of research showing that weight stigma has a significant effect on long term health, making it an important subject for medical professionals to address personally and collectively. So we will spend today’s episode diving into weight bias and what we can do about it.
Weight Stigma is a intricate and complicated subject that permeates the society we live in. We are all affected in some way by stigma, whether we are the subject of stigma, perpetrators of stigma, or both. Stigma also has a significant effect on long term health, making it an important subject for medical professionals to address personally and systemically. We will be discussing Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramor's 7 weight stigma myths from Body Respect and expanding on them with our own ideas.
*Disclaimer: We will be using the terms “overweight” and “obese” for this episode, because they are the medical terms currently being used. Therefore they have specific definitions. We find them offensive when used to describe people and will normally use the terms larger/smaller bodied, or fat/thin throughout the podcast. The “War on Obesity” is attacking ordinary, law-abiding citizens who happen to be traveling around in bodies that are larger than whatever society has deemed “appropriat
Get to know co-hosts, Dr. DeAun Nelson and Sarah Thompson as we introduce our topic of what's possible in health care when we shift our focus off of weight and why it's important to us. Don't forget to subscribe!
