Fat Shaming in Medical Settings

In recent decades, obesity has become a public health crisis and has many adverse health effects and risks. As a larger percentage of the population becomes obese, healthcare providers must be trained to offer respectful and appropriate care to such patients.

Fat shaming is a large societal problem and experiencing it in healthcare settings can be psychologically traumatic. Microaggressions such as negative reactions to noting a patients' weight can be very stressful and stigmatizing to patients. These effects can be very harmful by causing patients to delay care and minimize interactions with providers.

Medical fat shaming also contributes to bias and causes adverse health outcomes. Clinical studies commonly exclude obese patients because they assume these people have worse health. One common example is with drug dosing; many drug classes are impacted by a person's body fat, so it is likely that obese patients are incorrectly dosed. Providers are also likely to fixate on a patient's weight and make it the focus of their care. Dr. Joan Chrisler noted that, by dismissing fat patients' complaints or wrongfully assuming that their health issues are brought on by weight,

"[Physicians] could jump to conclusions or fail to run appropriate tests, which results in misdiagnosis... Research has shown that doctors repeatedly advise weight loss for fat patients while recommending CAT scans, blood work or physical therapy for other, average weight patients."

One study displayed that "obese patients were 1.65 times more likely than others to have significant undiagnosed medical conditions." This is likely due to misdiagnosis or patients simply not voicing their concerns to physicians.

Caralyst's matching algorithm takes sizeism into account and will allow patients who have had negative experiences based on their weight to find physicians who are actively fighting against weight-based stigma.