Research-based support for weight neutral health management

Research-based support for weight justice and weight-neutral approaches to health management:

• Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift
• Positioning of Weight Bias: Moving toward social justice
• The weight-inclusive versus weight-normative approach to health: evaluating the evidence for prioritizing well-being over weight loss
• Weight Stigma as a Psychosocial Contributor to Obesity
• Weight Stigma and Weight-Related Health: Associations of Self-Report Measures Among Adults in Weight Management
• Decolonizing Healthcare: Addressing Social Stressors in Medicine
• Weight stigma and diabetes stigma in U.S. adults with type 2 diabetes: Associations with diabetes, self-care behaviors and perceptions of health care
• Trying again (and again): Weight cycling and depressive symptoms in U.S. adults

As community health providers, the Healthy Living Program is invested in the advancement of equitable healthcare for all people.  What does this mean? 

• Respecting and honoring the diversity of body types, abilities, genders, and backgrounds.  This means supporting and implementing policies that create a more just, equitable healthcare system and world. 
• Co-creating and actively maintaining a community that feels safe, welcoming, and accessible to all participants.
• Actively seeking to unlearn healthcare-related messages and myths that have perpetuated harm against Black, Indigenous, and other people of color in this country and around the world. 
• Taking comprehensive looks at the underlying causes of disease in underserved populations and being willing to ask the hard questions. 
• Always aiming to make our approaches, services, and programming equitable and accessible to all community members. 
• Being always willing to learn, change, and grow.  

True health is not possible in the face of oppression.  To support health, we must support the dismantling and rebuilding of systems that prevent it.