Resources

Below are several resources you may find helpful as well as a research bank.

There are printable self-advocacy cards you can take with you to your medical visits, handouts for client education, a list of friendly practitioners, and for those interested in diving deeper into the studies informing the current development of evidence-based, weight neutral healthcare and the limitations of intentional weight loss.

A Note on Language

The project creators note that while the literature tends to use stigmatizing language–such as “overweight” and “obese”–we do not endorse this language as it is both oppressive and incorrectly pathologizes and medicalizes bodies based on their size.

Printable Self Advocacy Cards

The More-Love Don’t Weigh Me Cards
https://more-love.org/free-dont-weigh-me-cards/

What to Say at the Doctor’s Office Cards
https://danceswithfat.org/2013/04/01/what-to-say-at-the-doctors-office/

Asking for the Correct Vaccine Needle Cards
https://weightandhealthcare.substack.com/p/how-to-get-the-correct-size-needle

Other Useful Resources

Da’Shaun Harrison: Belly of the Beast – The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness
https://dashaunharrison.com/shop/belly-of-the-beast/

Sabrina Strings: Fearing the Black Body – the Racial Origins of Fat Phobia
https://www.sabrinastrings.com/books

HAES Nutrition Handouts via Meghan Cichy, LLC
Click here to access the HAES Nutrition Handouts Download Folder

Weight Neutral Provider Lead List from Mary Lambert
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-uu8nSoip1et80P6HHTOVKYB5aJI_PT0lX_AxQsBbJw/edit#gid=0

List of Anti-Diet, HAES, and Intuitive Eating Providers via Christy Harrison
https://christyharrison.com/haes-anti-diet-intuitive-eating-providers-eating-disorder-recovery

Fat Friendly Health Professionals List
http://www.fatfriendlydocs.com/

Resources to Fight BMI-Based Healthcare Denials
https://weightandhealthcare.substack.com/p/options-to-deal-with-bmi-based-healthcare

Weight-Inclusive Care for Osteoarthritis via Mosaic Comprehensive Care
https://mosaiccarenc.com/uncategorized/joints-weight-inclusive-care-osteoarthritis/

Providing X-Rays, MRIs and CT Scans to Higher-Weight Patients
https://weightandhealthcare.substack.com/p/providing-x-rays-mris-and-ct-scans

Research: Support for Weight-Neutral Care

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2253567/Weight Science – Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift
Lindo Bacon, Lucy Aphramor
https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2891-10-9
This paper evaluates the evidence and rationale that justifies shifting the health care paradigm from a conventional weight focus to HAES.

Size acceptance and intuitive eating improve health for obese, female chronic dieters
Lindo Bacon, Judith S Stern, Marta D Van Loan, Nancy L Keim
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15942543
HAES approach resulted in improved health risk indicators

Relationship Between Low Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Mortality in Normal-Weight, Overweight, and Obese Men
Ming Wei, MD, MPH; James B. Kampert, PhD; Carolyn E. Barlow, MS; et al
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/192035
Relative risk of all-cause mortality was similarly mitigated by fitness, regardless of BMI

Healthy Lifestyle Habits and Mortality in Overweight and Obese Individuals
Eric M. Matheson, Dana E. King and Charles J. Everett
https://www.jabfm.org/content/25/1/9.abstract?etoc
Healthy Habits were associated with a similarly significant decrease in mortality regardless of BMI

Stigma in Practice: Barriers to Health for Fat Women
Jennifer A. Lee, Cat J. Pausé
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02063/full
An exploration of barriers to healthcare for fat people, including structural and institutional policies, attitudes, and practices.

Recognizing the Fundamental Right to be Fat: A Weight-Inclusive Approach to Size Acceptance and Healing From Sizeism
Rachel M. Calogera, Tracy L. Tylka, Janell L. Mensinger, Angela Meadows, Sigrun Daníelsdóttir
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02703149.2018.1524067
An exploration of issues with the Weight Normative Approach, the benefits of a Weight Inclusive Approach, and strategies for therapists to align their practice with a Weight Inclusive Approach

What’s wrong with the ‘war on obesity?’ A narrative review of the weight-centered health paradigm and development of the 3C Framework to build critical competency for a paradigm shift. 
Lily O’Hara and Jane Taylor 
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244018772888
Critique of the weight-centered health paradigm and review of the literature around ineffectiveness and harms of the weight-centered approach. 

The weight-inclusive versus weight-normative approach to health: evaluating the evidence for prioritizing well-being over weight loss
Tracy L Tylka, Rachel A Annunziato, Deb Burgard, Sigrún Daníelsdóttir, Ellen Shuman, Chad Davis, Rachel Calogero
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4132299/
Review of the data on weight and health, including ineffectiveness and harms of dieting, health effects of weight stigma, and data behind a weight-inclusive approach.

Obesity treatment: Weight loss versus increasing fitness and physical activity for reducing health risks
Gaesser and Angadi
https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(21)00963-9
Makes the case for weight-neutral care over intentional weight loss

The body politic: the relationship between stigma and obesity-associated disease
Peter Muennig
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2386473/
Examines the relationship between weight stigma and health issues, and finds that weight stigma may drive health issues that are typically blamed on body size.

I Think Therefore I Am: Perceived Ideal Weight as a Determinant of Health
Peter Muennig
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2253567/
Found that the difference between actual and desired body weight was a stronger predictor of physical and mental health than body mass index (BMI) 

Research: Issues with Weight-Loss/Dieting as a Healthcare Intervention

Validity of claims made in weight management research: a narrative review of dietetic articles
Lucy Aphramor
https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2891-9-30
The best available evidence demonstrates that conventional weight management has a high long-term failure rate. The ethical implications of continued reliance on an energy deficit approach to weight management are under-explored.

How effective are traditional dietary and exercise interventions for weight loss?
W.C. Miller
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10449014
The data that exists suggest almost complete weight regain after 3-5 years

Medicare’s search for effective obesity treatments: diets are not the answer
Traci Mann, Janet Tomiyama
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/17469900
Almost all dieters regain all the weight, many regain more

Long‐term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health?
Traci Mann, Janet Tomiyama
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/spc3.12076
Dieting was not shown to be correlated with improved health outcomes.

Probability of an Obese Person Attaining Normal Body Weight: Cohort Study Using Electronic Health Records
A. Fildes et. al
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4539812/
The annual probability of achieving normal body weight was 1 in 210 for men and 1 in 124 for women with simple ob*sity. The probability declined with increasing BMI category

If you know of a helpful resource that isn’t already listed here, please contact us by clicking here.