When I get to Fatima Cody Stanford, a leading obesity expert at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, it’s one of the first things she does to my use of obese person, to lead me to the more neutral person with obesity instead (and in the process proves that obese people are very well able to incorporate the culture of fatphobia). “When we call an obese person, it does not take into account the fact that there is a real disease process that is controlled and regulated by the hypothalamus in the brain, which causes each of us to regulate our weight differently,” he explains. Stanford. ‘When people look at patients with obesity – whether it’s mild, moderate or severe – they assume,’ Oh, this is something they did to themselves, and they followed this way from something they did. ‘We do not place the same thought processing or blame on individuals who have cancer. ”
Stanford agrees that doctors are generally one of the “worst groups” to maintain fat phobia, but she is determined to give a different attention to her patients. She sees that obesity is placed within the larger socio-cultural context, and notes that racial minorities are more likely to be obese, in addition to the fact that they are already at greater risk of contracting COVID-19. ‘When patients with obesity come to me and ask if they should get the vaccine, I give them an unambiguous explanation, because data show that the COVID-19 outcomes are significantly worse for patients with obesity. I will give them advice to make sure they are best protected against this virulent disease that has plagued our entire lives, ”says Stanford.
Although medical bias is a risk factor for many people – if not most – obese people, our own internalized fat phobia and self-esteem can do just as much psychological damage. ‘At first I thought [my BMI qualifying me for the vaccine] was ironic because I might not have qualified if I had not picked up the weight during the pandemic, “says Catherine, 24, who will soon receive her first dose of vaccination in Brooklyn.” I’m already scared of some of the things people “I can say or think about it, not only because I’m gaining weight, but also because I’m unemployed. It’s really hard not to feel like I’m fat or unemployed, that I’m worthless or lazy.” that she receives the vaccine on the basis of BMI, but she is also aware of the dissonance that a society with a deep diet culture has instilled in her: ‘It feels strange that I am seemingly rewarded for failing.’