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Blog

The Skin We Live In: Obesity stigma and the misdirection of responsibility

16/9/2019

2 Comments

 
Obese and high-weight individuals are stigmatised and blamed for their poor health. This bullying approach is further harming these individuals and is not the solution to this complex health challenge
Picture
Alex Bogaardt

Last month in the US WW (formally Weight Watchers), launched Kurbo, a nutrition and weight loss app aimed at children aged 8 to 17. The app uses a traffic light system, nudging children towards consuming ‘green light foods’ (fruits and vegetables), limiting ‘amber light foods’ (protein and dairy) and avoiding ‘red light foods’ (sweets, chocolate etc). 


Gary Foster, chief scientific officer at WW told the Huffington Post “This isn’t a weight loss app. This is an app that teaches in a game-ified, fun, engaging way what are the basics of a healthy eating pattern.” The app has received widespread backlash in the media, with parents across the UK arguing that the focus on weight loss puts children at risk of eating disorders and life-long body dissatisfaction. As a psychologist working in a bariatric servicer, I would argue that this risk doesn’t end when the child grows into an adult. That weight-based stigma has negative mental health impacts and that the responsibility and blame placed on the individual for their poor health is both harmful and over simplified.   
​

Around a third of children in the UK aged 2 to 15 are already labeled as overweight or obese. Children are becoming obese at an earlier age, and staying obese for longer. Regardless of how we might feel about an 8-year-old logging their fish fingers into an app, weight based stigma which emphasises individual responsibility for weight is still a widely accepted basis for discrimination and humiliation, It is an approach to viewing weight that children are socialised to think is normal through culture, entertainment, advertising, health policy, as well as mainstream and social media. 

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    PSC is a network of people interested in applying psychology to generate social and political action. You don't have to be a member of PSC to contribute to the blog

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  • Home
  • About
  • Groups
    • England >
      • North East >
        • Sheffield
        • Leeds
      • North West >
        • North East
        • A North West Just Recovery following coronavirus
        • Manchester- PSPO letter
      • Midlands >
        • Midlands
        • Leicester
      • South East >
        • East Anglia
        • Hertfordshire
        • London
        • Oxford
        • Suffolk
        • Surrey
        • Sussex
      • South West >
        • Bristol and Bath
        • South West
    • Ireland
    • Northern Ireland
    • Jersey
    • Scotland
    • Wales - Cymru >
      • Elections 2021
      • Building Resilience and Community Wellbeing
      • Social and Political Causes of Poor Mental Health
      • Responding to Austerity and Mental Health in Wales - Accessible Document
    • Start a New Group
  • Blog
  • Position statements
    • UK >
      • Response to Panorama: Undercover Hospital Abuse Scandal
      • Esther McVey: PSC and RITB response
    • Cymru / Wales >
      • Connecting the Dots Report
      • Chemical Imbalance Myth
      • Review of use of dx PD
      • UK Inhumane Removal Plans
      • WG LGBT+actionplan
      • Ty Coryton
      • Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities: The Report
      • ECT Review
      • Black Lives Matter
      • COVID 19 and Internet Access
      • Save the T4CYP Programme
      • Support the Mind over matter Report
      • UN Report on Extreme Poverty in the UK Letter
    • England >
      • Psychologists for Social Change support the moratorium on school exclusions in England
      • Racism is Not Entertainment
      • Letter to Jeremy Hunt
      • UK Government Green Paper, Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision
      • Exam Crisis
    • Ireland >
      • End Direct Provision
    • Northern Ireland
    • Scotland
  • Campaigns
    • Structural racism demands a structural response
    • Embed anti-racism in the NHS
    • COVID-19 >
      • Mutual Aid
      • COVID and mental health
    • PSC Manifesto 2019
    • Visioning a new education system
    • New Savoy Conference Statement
    • Formulating Policy >
      • Origins of Happiness? PSC response
      • Basic Income: Psychological Impact Assessment
    • Preaching to the Non-Converted
    • Psychologists Against Austerity >
      • Austerity Briefing Paper
      • Everyday Austerity
    • Private Health Watch
  • Join our mailing list