Weight and Healthcare

I’ve been meaning to write a piece about “the basics” of weight and healthcare and a question from a reader gave me the perfect chance.

This came up during a monthly Subscriber Ask Me Anything. Many patients, of all sizes, choose to opt-out of routine weigh-ins for a lot of reasons.

But what happens when you decline a routine clinica…

I recently heard from reader Evelynn who asked :It seems like every other day I see a new supposed use for the GLP drugs. This just seems fishy to me. Are they really some kind of all purpose wonder …

In Part 1 we began discussing the 2025 study “Weight Trajectory Impacts Risk for Ten Distinct Cardiometabolic Diseases” by Swartz et al. that tested for possible harms of weight cycling. In part 1 I …

In part 1 we discussed the issues with the study “Energy expenditure and ob*sity across the economic spectrum” by McGrosky et al. Literally hundreds of people reached out to me to write about it and …

Wow did a lot of you ask me to write about the article “What causes ob*sity? A major new study is upending common wisdom” from The Washington Post.

The article is about a study called “Energy expendit…

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In part 1 we discussed general issues with claims about higher-weight patien…

BMI-based denials of care are devastating and can have serious negative impacts on people’s health, lives, and quality of life. In some cases they are, in fact, life or death. I have a series here th…

In part 1 I started discussing the ABC News article “GLP-1s work but when they're stopped, the effects stop too: Expert” We discussed the fact that in order to buy the claims their “expert” makes, yo…

There are a couple of online articles floating around that literally hundred of you have asked me to write about. One is the Washington Post “reporting” on the study about eating and body size. That …

In part 1, I offered a framework of questions for healthcare providers (or others) to ask themselves before they offer unsolicited health advice to a higher-weight person (or, really, any person.)

A couple years ago I wrote a piece about what to think about before offering unsolicited advice to higher-weight friends/family/strangers about their health. Today’s piece extends from that. While it…

In part 1 we discussed the basics of substituting weight loss for healthcare and accommodation. In part 2 we discussed issues with the likelihood of achieving weight loss, even if it was appropriate …

In part 1 we discussed the basics of substituting weight loss for healthcare and accommodation. In part 2 we discussed issues with the likelihood of achieving weight loss, even if it was appropriate …

In part 1 we discussed the basics of substituting weight loss for healthcare and accommodation. In part 2 we discussed issues with the likelihood of achieving weight loss, even if it was appropriate …

In part 1 of this series we looked at the basic issues of a healthcare system that is allowed to demand weight loss before patients are able to access healthcare. In this section, we’ll look at BMI-b…

Substituting weight loss for health and/or healthcare accommodation is a primary source of harm enacted on higher-weight people by the healthcare industry. I’ve had a bunch of requests asking me to w…

In Part 1 we looked at the basics of a study that compared the two newest GLP-1 weight loss drugs against each other - Novo Nordisk’s Semaglutide (Wegovy) and Eli Lilly’s Tirzepatide (Zepbound) The t…

On May 11, 2025, the study “Tirzepatide as Compared with Semaglutide for the Treatment of Ob*sity” was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

This study was, essentially, a cage match betwe…

The way that higher-weight patients are discussed (in research, in medical/healthcare education and training, and even in interventions meant to increase accessibility in healthcare) can vastly incre…