Out of the countless topics we could have chosen for our first episode, obesity bias & stigma seemed like the right place to start. It’s really hard to #loveyourneighbor when we’re busy judging them. But when you start to ask why & take time to care, you realize everyone hurts. And as you realize everyone hurts, you’ll find judgments are a lot harder to hold onto.
Thanks to Patty Nece for being our first guest! As you’ll hear, she’s been a top advocate for #obesityrights for years. I think you’ll enjoy our conversation -I learned a lot!!
Patty Nece is a past Chairwoman of the Obesity Action Coalition, a current Member of the National Academies of Science Round Table on Obesity Solutions, and has testified many times before the US Food and Drug Administration advocating for improved access to prevention and treatment of obesity.
Follow Patty on Twitter: @pattynece
Topics Discussed:
(07:05) Internalized Weight Bias & its Impact
(09:50) Recognizing & Challenging Weight Bias in Everyday Life
(13:16) Weight Bias in Healthcare
(20:54) Weight Bias in the Workplace & Legal Protections
(22:56) Discussing Weight Bias with Children
(26:42) Difference Between Bias & Stigma
(29:34) Person-First Language
(32:22) Overcoming Personal Biases
(34:12) Taking Action & Getting Involved
(37:56) The Obesity Bill of Rights
Mentioned in today’s episode:
- Obesity Action Coalition
- Stop Weight Bias Campaign
- Stomp Out Bullying
- Stop Obesity Alliance “Weighing In Guide”
- Treat and Reduce Obesity Act (TROA) “FAQ”
- The Obesity Bill of Rights
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Transcript
Patty Nece (00:00.11)
The research shows that weight bias starts before age three. Ridiculing and bullying starts really early. So whether your child’s engaging in that or not, or is the target of that or not, they’re going to see it. And making sure that they understand that it’s okay to have differences.
Bill Jollie (00:28.302)
More than 73% of Americans have overweight or obesity, while more than 12 % have food insecurity. America is getting heavier, sicker, and more isolated from each other every day. Our motto, Move, Eat, Give, reflects our belief that virtually every problem in America could be fixed if we took better care of ourselves and took better care of each other. Welcome to Interrupt Hunger’s Move, Eat, Give podcast, where we talk with experts in exercise is medicine, food is medicine, and food insecurity.
And understanding that knowledge isn’t always enough to help you lose weight, every other episode showcases someone who’s lost at least 10% body weight to share exactly how they did it. Interrupt Hunger is a 501c3 nonprofit, which helps you lose weight while feeding the hungry. Bring our free 12-week weight loss challenge and donate your weight program to the places you live, work, and pray. We fund our mission with sales from our MOVE EAT GIVE bracelets and clothing. So please visit us at interrupthunger.org to show your support.
50 meals are donated for every item sold to the nation’s largest hunger relief network. So you get to look good while feeling good. Now onto today’s episode.
Hey everyone, Jollie here with Interrupt Hunger. I am so excited to welcome you to our first episode of the MOVE EAT GIVE podcast. Out of the countless topics we could have chosen for our first episode, obesity, stigma, bias seem like the right place to start. It is really hard to love your neighbor when we’re busy judging them. But when you start to ask why,
take time to care, you realize everyone hurts. And as you realize everyone hurts, you’ll find judgments are a lot harder to hold onto. This is especially true when it comes to obesity. Behind the statistics and stereotypes, there’s real people dealing with an overwhelming physical, emotional, and societal challenge. So to shed light on this important topic, we’ve brought you an exceptional guest who will share their personal experiences and insights. Together,
We’ll explore how we can break down the harmful stigma and bias around obesity and approach this issue with empathy and understanding. If you’d like to learn more after the episode, check out the show notes for links to additional resources. Patty Neist is a past chairwoman of the Obesity Action Coalition and currently chairs their Weight Bias Committee. If you haven’t heard of the Obesity Action Coalition, they have over 70 ,000 members and was recognized by the American Medical Association as the authority for unbiased
Bill Jollie (02:49.614)
clear patient education about obesity. She served as a commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Obesity, is currently a member of the National Academies of Science round table on obesity solutions. That’s so cool. And has testified many times before the US Food and Drug Administration advocating for improved access to prevention and treatment of obesity. Patty earned her law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Go Tar Heels. Patty, welcome to the podcast.
It’s great to be here, Jolly. I’m excited to be part of one of your initial podcasts. That’s an exciting development for your organization for sure. So I’m so glad you’re doing this. You know, I do have the qualifications that you mentioned, but my biggest qualification is that I’ve had obesity since childhood. I was always one of the biggest kids in the room. And as a result, I was pretty much ridiculed and bullied my whole life. You know, it starts early. Friends, family, you know.
Kids are wonderful creatures, but they can be really mean. A common name they called me was Fatty Patty. You know, and that never felt good as a child. And I knew just because of my size, I was outside most circles. You know, it was hard to break into different social circles and the like. But I managed to. It just was difficult. And, you know, I was…
sometimes even singled out for my weight by officials in the school, like the school nurse who weighed me in front of all their classmates. But when I got up there, she did my height and my weight and compared them to some chart on the wall. And she said, you’re fat, you need to lose weight in front of all my peers. And, you know, she’s not, it wasn’t like I was being honored because I was a straight A student or had perfect attendance.
She was singling me out just because of my body size. You know, I was always an active kid too. I biked, I swam. I was on a synchronized swim team in college. I was always active, but I always carried excess weight. That’s what my body was like. And it’s a struggle to live like that. And then you’re told that the reason your body is the size it is, is all your fault.
Bill Jollie (05:13.262)
because you’re not eating right and moving correctly. You need to eat less and move more. Push away from the table, put down that fork. You just don’t have enough willpower. Well, I had enough willpower to go through law school and have a very successful career as an attorney at the United States Department of Labor. I won awards for my work. I won awards for some of my civic work, like from the Alexandria, Virginia Animal Shelter, which is Animal Welfare League, which is…
where I live for volunteer work with the shelter, things like that. So I’m not someone that’s lacking in willpower. I just want to get that clear and we need to get rid of that concept. I mean, it takes willpower to try diet after diet after diet after diet and losing some weight and eventually regaining it and usually ending up at a higher weight than when I started the diet, which is very common.
with people with obesity. That’s what happens without appropriate treatment. But, you know, so it was tough. It was tough. I mean, I think my first formal diet was the Adkins diet in junior high school. Our whole family did it. Both of my parents had obesity, as did all four of my grandparents. So, but my parents and I did this and lost some weight, but again, all of us regained it, frankly, and then some.
So it, you know, I used to think I was failing all these diets, but my attitude has changed now. Didn’t change till I was in my fifties. Um, but my attitude now is that those diets were failing me. It’s just crazy how many, I mean, that’s like countless stories that have been perpetuated for decades now. And it’s no wonder that, that so many folks internalize. Yeah. And that’s right. And, and that’s what happened to me.
All of the fault and all the shame I internalized. And I didn’t even realize how much of it I internalized until I, you know, I got to the point in my life where I stopped trying to manage my weight. I had done everything I could think of and it just hadn’t worked. And my life got sort of smaller and smaller as I got a little bit larger. You know, my life just got smaller and I would.
Bill Jollie (07:38.798)
Only go places that were, I felt safe with people that I knew accepted me as I was. You know, I didn’t like to travel because traveling as a larger size person is really hard. You know, much of society is not built from a physical standpoint for larger people. And that all makes you feel like you don’t belong. And I took all that inside and became my own worst bully.
And it wasn’t until I figured out those issues that I was able to even begin to successfully manage my weight. So it, it, it’s internalized weight bias is what it’s called. And I had the great gift of finding a couple of very gifted psychologists, Robin Pashby and Dr. William Pacone, who specialize in treating people with obesity and in things like stigma reduction and.
working with them, I was able to start challenging all this negative self -talk I had, like you’re such a failure, and I would challenge it with, are you really? Just because you’re a weight, you’re a failure? You don’t see all that other incredible stuff you’re doing over here. No, you don’t. I mean, one of my friends summarized it. She had a very successful career family, but she had excess weight, and she said, makes me feel rotten to my core.
And you’re just not being fair to yourself, first of all, but that’s what all those, you know, societal pressures and messages and from everywhere, there’s weight bias and stigma and discrimination everywhere in our society. I want to try to really draw out the emotion of not just necessarily our guests, but what folks are going through. Everybody’s going through something.
Either internally or family or work or something. And we just need to learn to like give a dime about other people and just assume that somebody’s going through something and try to be more understanding and stop being judgmental. I was the heaviest kid in sixth grade. I was standing on that scale with everybody else lined up. And I really didn’t start getting in shape until I decided to go into the Marine Corps.
Bill Jollie (10:01.134)
So I know a little bit about what you’re talking about. Um, and the big difference is between folks with obesity and some of the other things that folks struggle with is, is you can see it. Right. You wear it, we wear it on our sleeves. Yeah. Yeah. So I just really appreciate you coming on, not just for sharing your story and some things we’ll get into later. Uh, but I thought this would be just a really, really good place to start our podcast.
And let folks know because even like I went through a little bit of the same similar struggles that you did back in sixth grade, like as you’re talking, you know, and our conversation, some of that’s coming back, but even recently, I think I’m getting better as I’m getting older. I just turned 52. Um, I still had a lot of biases, but the difference is over the last couple of years, I’ve, I’ve learned how to like spot them sooner and acknowledge those. And I think.
The first step of getting rid of the judgment and stigma and bias is to acknowledge and have some pretty good discussions with yourself. Yeah, I think that’s right. And that’s a great place to start. When people ask, what can I do? I’ll tell them, the next time you’re out in public and you see someone that’s closer to my body size and perhaps their own.
Think if you’re like, if you saw someone like me, for instance, if you’re thinking anything other than she looks great in that red sweater, you need to think harder about what your automatic thoughts are. What are you thinking? Are you thinking, geez, that’s a person that doesn’t eat right, doesn’t exercise at all, doesn’t care about themselves, they’ve just let themselves go, or even worse, on…
Oh, they’re just not intelligent. They can’t be successful. They’re stupid. They’re dirty. They’re ugly. You know, all those stereotypes that are often associated with people in larger bodies, you know, they’re unfair and untrue any more so than any person of any other size body. And so really questioning those things that you’re thinking is a great place to start.
Bill Jollie (12:18.67)
And once you’re at that point, you can start seeing in society all the different forms of weight bias that exists. You know, one of my friends has said, you know, I never saw a weight bias before. I learned about it. And now she says she can’t unsee it because it is everywhere. I mean, things like fat jokes on sitcoms or the character on the sitcom, the large character being the butt of all the jokes or the villain in the movie.
You know, everybody else is a quote unquote normal size, whatever that is, they’re all slender. And then the villain is a big man or woman kind of thing. You know, so we’re villainized, we’re made fun of. That’s just the entertainment media, not to mention all the headless pictures in both journalistic media and other things. And, you know, it just goes, and that’s not even touching on.
the bias we experience in healthcare or in jobs and other areas of life. So that’s, that’s actually a great topic to turn to next. So we were talking about the, um, I don’t know, different and out metaphors you can use. You take your blinders off, you see things differently or you have your radar on. So you’re just, you, you’re kind of on the lookout for these things now. So do you mind sharing kind of just in some of these different.
situations, whether it’s healthcare, the workplace, at home, or we’re talking to our kids. Do you mind giving our folks some examples of like, what does stigma and bias look like in the healthcare setting? Because we’re starting to hear a lot of that. At the Obesity Action Coalition, we have a weight bias reporting tool where people can tell us where they’ve experienced weight bias. 95 to 99 % of the complaints we get or reports we get,
are people who have experienced weight bias in healthcare. Oh, wow. So we know that’s an area where we really need to focus. That’s one of the things, that’s actually the main thing that tool does for us, is it helps us know where people are actually experiencing bias. You get a whole range of bias in healthcare. Some of it can be simple as, you need to lose weight and finger wagging. You’re not eating right and you’re not exercising right.
Bill Jollie (14:41.038)
Well, without offering any kind of support from a medical provider. And that we’ve all had that experience. Like I never thought I might want to lose some weight or that that would be good for my health. You know, like that’s something new to us. It’s not, but we need support in that journey. And it’s actually did not give that support is just another form of weight bias, frankly, but you’ll have even more.
you know, in healthcare you’ll have even more explicit bias. The worst that ever happened to me was an orthopedist who didn’t listen to what my symptoms of hip pain were. And he said, let me cut to the chase. He interrupted me and said, you need to lose weight. And I said, well, I’m surprised I’m having this pain now because at the time I’d been working with my obesity medicine physician and I’d lost about 70 pounds.
And he said, well, you need to lose more weight. Have you considered weight loss surgery? And he proceeded to lecture me about my weight and berate me about my weight to the point that I was in tears. And he said, see, you’re even in tears because of the pain your weight is causing. Well, no, that’s not what I was crying about. I was crying about the way he had treated me. And in non -polite company like the…
other outside of something like this. I have more colorful words to describe the way he treated me. But, and then he diagnosed me with quote unquote obesity pain, not a real diagnosis. And I never, you know, experiences like that, you don’t want to see any healthcare care providers ever. And it wasn’t until I got to the point where I couldn’t walk again with this hip pain that my primary care physician handpicked an orthopedist for me to see.
And he took spinal X -rays, which the other doctor had not laid a hand on me except to shake my hand out when he walked out of the door. He hadn’t examined me, nothing. But the second orthopedist diagnosed appropriately severe degenerative scoliosis with a 65 degree curve in my spine. So, you know, if you take the…
Bill Jollie (16:57.422)
pipes under your kitchen sink and rotate them, what is it? 180 degrees, you basically have my spine. And because he couldn’t look beyond my weight, totally missed that diagnosis. Couldn’t see anything else. He couldn’t see anything. And those stories are legion. You know, one of my friends who was breathing fine, who had obesity, severe obesity like me, breathing fine one day, not breathing fine the next.
She goes to an urgent care facility and they say, it’s your weight. You need to lose weight, you’ll breathe better. Fortunately, she had an obesity medicine specialist that she called and said, this is what’s happening and this is what they told me. He said, go to a hospital ER immediately. She had blood clots in her lungs. She had pulmonary emboli. Why the medical practitioners involved there didn’t understand that she’s saying,
Her weight didn’t change one iota, but she went from being able to breathe fine to not breathe fine. That’s a problem. If somebody slandered, walked in there and said that, they’d be all over it. But because of her weight, they ignored her complaint. And I, you know, I could give you example after example. And then in addition to things like that, the healthcare facilities aren’t, often are not equipped for people in larger bodies. They don’t have appropriate size chairs in the waiting room, gowns that fit.
blood pressure cuffs, adequate exam tables, or even adequate procedure tables, adequate imaging equipment for people in larger bodies. Again, that list is long. And it sends a message to people in larger bodies or with obesity that they’re not welcome. They’re not welcome here. They’re not welcome here. Yeah, I’ve started learning how prevalent this is, pervasive it is.
And that I don’t know the numbers, but generally speaking, uh, people with obesity, they don’t go to the doctor as often as others do. Um, and there’s a whole mess of ramifications on that. Right. But if the doctor would just take their, their filters off, so they actually saw the entire person and you know, by the way, that patient might be there for something completely different. So how about just, is it okay to talk to.
Bill Jollie (19:23.758)
you know, would you like to discuss your weight, your health, what do you want to talk about today? You know, asking is a simple way of approaching it. And that’s the advice that I generally give to doctors because, and medical professionals, other medical professionals too, because if you’re not ready or if you’re, you know, you have autonomy in this. You get to choose whether you’re going to talk about your weight or not.
might not be a good time, you just might not be ready, you might be sick of dealing with people always talking about your weight, or it might be a good way to start the conversation if someone is ready. And frankly, I’ve never said no to a medical professional who has asked respectfully, and not done the finger wag and not assumed.
You know, you could look at me and think she’s never done anything about her weight. She doesn’t eat right. You have no idea where that person has been. You know, they could be down a hundred pounds from where they started, which is a remarkable accomplishment, right? You don’t know just by looking at them. And it’s true for the medical profession too. They don’t know just by looking at patients, you know, it takes a more, they have to be curious.
They have to be curious and want to learn about the individual. Have a heart and offer support. Sure. I just I heard something that actually really surprised me in a bad way yesterday that it is not against the law to discriminate against someone that has obesity in the workplace. Right. I think I think I’m right. I think Michigan is the only state that is. Michigan is the only state that has a clear statute on a clear law on it.
Washington state has also in the employment context through case law, they have essentially, it gets complicated because the laws involve, but they’ve said you can’t discriminate against people because of their size, but that’s not in the law. It comes out of a case their Supreme court decided. There are some local jurisdictions with New York city being the largest that recently passed last year.
Bill Jollie (21:46.222)
recently passed legislation that makes it illegal to discriminate against people based on body size. And there are some other cities that have done that. And there’s legislation pending, I want to say it’s five states, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Jersey, at least those three. There may be one or two others where legislation is pending. And research shows public opinion is that it should be illegal, but it’s not. It’s not.
Unfortunately. And, but that’s something that OAC, our efficacy teams are working on. It does feel like we’re at a turning point. Yeah. For folks being aware of, of, I don’t know, paying attention. Maybe, you know, it’s just, it’s gotten to a tipping point. I’m sure the, all the press on the, the anti -obesity medication. Right. Which is legion. Right. But it’s got, it’s got people talking about it. No, it has.
It’ll be good, but it’s got people talking about it. And I think generally speaking, that’s, that’s a good thing. So hopefully the, the momentum is going to build enough so that, um, you know, some of these other laws and jurists just can get, get passed. Um, it’s kind of turned the topic a little bit. So I told you we’ve got a, uh, our youngest daughter is six. She’s in kindergarten. Uh, and actually just had her hundredth day of kindergarten parade this morning. So that was fun to watch. Oh my gosh. I’ve started thinking about, as I’ve dove into this to learn more.
I catch myself, like not really sure what to say or I’m starting to say something that I wouldn’t have thought twice about in the past. And I’m like, okay, just pause for a second. It’s probably not the best thing to do to say, but like at six, like they take their lead from me and her mom and her older sisters. So can you talk about like how we can just as parents maybe start?
shaping the conversation in a positive direction or things that we can think about? Yeah, these are tips that I’ve just read and heard from other parents. I’m not a parent myself, so I haven’t experienced this, but modeling behavior is a great thing to do because they are looking at you. Modeling, eating, modeling movement, just for a healthier lifestyle generally. Whether…
Bill Jollie (24:06.894)
they ever carry excess weight or not. And recognizing that, you know, it’s not all about looks. And I think this is especially important for young, yet for girls. Although I think it affects boys too. But you know, the research shows that weight bias starts before age three. Riticuling and bullying starts really early.
So whether your child’s engaging in that or not, or is the target of that or not, they’re going to see it. And making sure that they understand that it’s OK to have differences. And maybe even encouraging them, if there is a kid in school who’s being othered or ostracized for their weight, or even maybe it could be for anything, that they reach out to that kid. There’s a great website.
or an organization called Stomp Out Bullying. And they have a whole guide for what kids can do in schools to help other kids. Now six may be a little young, but certainly as they get a little older, that would help. And I think not criticizing our own bodies and instead what they do for us, whatever shape it’s in, you know, they allow us to live our lives. They allow us to do.
these many things and we want to keep them healthy, as opposed to saying in front of your child, I don’t fit in these pants right, I need to lose weight, or I don’t fit in this dress or whatever, I look horrible, or am I looking fat in this? All those things those kids take in and that’s what they begin to value rather than the individual who’s inside that body.
So I think those are all things that parents can think about and model. There’s also the Stop Obesity Alliance has a guide for talking to younger children about their weight. It’s probably more designed for kids that are being targeted and bullied, because that’s hard for parents to deal with. And for a lot of parents, there’s such a genetic component to weight that they’re reliving their own childhood when they hear these stories from their child. And it’s called the Weighing Guide.
Bill Jollie (26:31.246)
I think that’s what it’s called. W E I G H, weigh in guide. And it gives some tips for working with your kids. We’ll put both of those in the show notes. Thanks. Can we talk about the difference between stigma and bias? And there’s some different forms. There’s internal and there’s external. Can you kind of, I don’t want to put you on the spot. You don’t have to go very deep on those. Intrinsic is more about what people think.
rather than their actions and their views of people with obesity. Do they have stereotypical views of larger body people? And what we found in the most recent research on that topic is that as measure that extrinsic weight bias, the outside, no question about what’s going on, has actually dropped as it has in many other categories like race and sex.
That’s come down. But intrinsic weight bias has increased even though in other categories like race and sex, intrinsic bias has also come down. So it’s an odd scale. So people, I guess to put it in sort of practical terms is people are less likely to open their mouths and say something to someone who’s fat, but they’re more likely to have.
stereotypical beliefs and negative beliefs about people in large bodies. So, and that’s running contrary to other areas where stigma is prevalent. You could spend a few hours thinking about why that’s going up. I know. And that all honestly, that predates most of the coverage. The more that research predates most of the more recent coverage of the
uh, expansion of the anti -obesity medications. So I don’t know if there might be a change. I mean, I never thought I’d see the wall street journal say maybe wait, isn’t all about willpower, but they did. Um, I didn’t realize this either. I’ve learned so much in the, in the last year or so, uh, just diving, diving into this world. Was it 20, 2013? I think the, uh, obesity medicine.
Bill Jollie (28:56.91)
Association came up the American Meadows Medical Association. They came out and said they acknowledge that obesity, right? Of the disease, right? That was probably a major turning point. Well, it didn’t. It hasn’t turned for a long time. I mean, I think it’s there. There were a lot of politics involved in that decision, of course, but and a lot competing interests. But yeah, it’s taken a while for that to really be acknowledged. But it’s not just the AMA now. It’s.
Most major medical associations around the globe have acknowledged obesity as a disease now. Another thing that, um, I say has helped me a lot reframe how I see folks is the discussion about person first language. So I am a 12 year leukemia survivor, but no one.
would refer to me as cancerous. Right. That’s right. We’re very comfortable calling people obese. I think fat, the word fat is getting away, but, um, obese is still, or, or, uh, okay. So, um, I’ve learned that it’s, you have obesity, a person with obesity. Can you just kind of talk about that a little bit? Yeah.
We advocate for use of person first language. You’re separating, when you use person first language and say a person with obesity or a person with cancer, you’re separating the person from the disease itself. When you use a term like she’s obese, then you’re equating me as a person to the disease. So it’s a way of understanding that that’s not all I am.
you’re not just cancerous. You know, we would never think of a cancerous survivor that way, right? And so that it’s a, it’s a small thing, but it’s important. But I think what’s interesting is different words can have different triggers. Like some people like the word fat, they accept it. That’s what they want to be called. And that’s fine.
Bill Jollie (31:16.014)
for them. It’s not what I like because, you know, as I said, I was called fatty Patty. That word is triggering for me because of my own personal experiences. It for many reasons that I, you know, we could have a whole other show on that. But so I don’t prefer that word for myself. I prefer to use the term obesity. But that word can be triggering for some other people. So it’s hard to find.
to navigate the language in this area and that everybody will agree on. What I always suggest to medical professionals, ask the patient what they want. What terms they, ask if they’d like to talk about their weight or if they have any concerns about, it was now a good time, ask them, do you prefer higher weight? Whatever they want, higher weight or overweight or.
obesity or fat, whatever the individual wants is going to produce the most constructive. So I’ll, um, I’ll just be very vulnerable and transparent here. I think I’m very, very good at judging people and, um, I’ve been working hard to, uh, to, to fix that. Um, whether that’s, uh, be becoming a very strong ally and the LGBT community.
community or this example that we’re talking about today. Several times on my journey in the recent years that, you know, I’ve been open with my family talking throughout my life and my girls. Remember my oldest two are 22 and 26. My 26 year old is not afraid to call me out at all and is quite happy. But it’s been, you know, it’s, I mean, it’s hard because you go so many decades thinking one way.
thinking about somebody one way. And a lot of that is the nature nurture, how you were brought up and all that kind of stuff. It doesn’t really matter how old you are or where you start. It’s just to start asking the questions. But it is just to prove a point like how hard this is. Like I’m trying to do the right thing. I’m cognizant, I’m having the internal dialogue, but I still slip. And my oldest one will catch me on it. I’m like, dang it. Like.
Bill Jollie (33:39.886)
It’s just really, really hard, but it’s just, you know, it’s, it’s trying to, trying to do better, trying to be better and trying to treat people better. That’s right. And it takes practice. You know, it took me practice. It wasn’t something I thought about till I started advocacy in this field. And it just takes time. It takes time. It takes practice and we need to afford each other grace in that. And look at people’s true motives.
Are they really trying? And the answer is yes. You don’t transform these things overnight. You just don’t. That might be a, um, a good next step for, for advocacy. You’ve, you’ve been in the advocacy world for, for a little bit now. Yeah. What if somebody wants to get involved? Can you give some, some examples of sure. I mean, one thing to do is go to obesityaction .org and check out our action center.
There are various actions you can take there, like writing to Congress urging them to support the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act, which would allow Medicare to cover anti -obesity medications. Right now, if you’re 64 turning 65 and you’re on an anti -obesity medication and you turn 65 and go on Medicare, Medicare won’t cover it. So you could have it and then lose that coverage just because you’ve turned 65. And what’s that?
Is that Bill Culligan? The Treat and Reduce Obesity Act. Okay. But there are other actions there too, like supporting anti -discrimination legislation. And it’s very easy to take those actions in from the Action Center. Just follow the steps through. Another thing you can do is visit stopweightbias .org. And that’s our Stop Weight Bias campaign. And you can learn more about weight bias.
We have fact sheets, but we also have quite a number of personal stories there. And that’s one of the best ways to learn, is to listen to people’s stories. Another thing that people can do is start, if you see something that’s weight bias, say something. Let’s say somebody at the office tells a fat joke. If you feel comfortable enough, and once you’ve learned enough about all this,
Bill Jollie (35:59.214)
speak out and say, you know, we don’t, that’s a discriminatory joke and people of size don’t deserve that kind of treatment. They deserve our respect. They’re struggling in their own ways or they’re living their lives as they want to, but either way they’re entitled to our respect. Full stop. I think, I’m glad you brought that up because that is hard again. That’s uncomfortable. It’s awkward.
Right. It’s, it’s very much needed to change things because if somebody’s saying something discriminatory and you just let it go, you’re not helping first of all. Right. Right. But it’s, it’s also a skill that you can practice. So I’ll say from personal experience, only recently have I done better about calling folks out and I don’t want to embarrass them and I don’t want to hurt their feelings. But so you, and you don’t have to say.
Like you don’t have to be mean -spirited at all. You can just be very short, be quiet. You can, you know, maybe pull them to the side of the room so you don’t embarrass them, but just say, hey, you know what? That’s probably not a nice thing to say. I mean, it’s a hard thing to do. And, you know, weight is complicated. And some people don’t appreciate that. You were not in control of it all. We just aren’t. And that’s one thing some of these medications are showing.
But you also can’t tell a person’s health from their weight as we discussed before. You just can’t. And we just need to MYOB. Mind your own body. And stop looking and judging other people’s bodies. You don’t know anything about their history or what they’re, look beyond their bodies. That’s where the good stuff is. That’s where the good stuff is. So why concentrate on the outside when you got it?
all that stuff on the inside. Just gotta be curious, just gotta care. If you’re ready to seek treatment or are interested in getting treatment for obesity, there’s some place you might want to check. There’s now an obesity bill of rights. The National Consumer League coupled with the National Council on Aging released a, there’s a website you can check out and it’s righttoobesitycare .org and that’s R -A -G -H -T the number two.
Bill Jollie (38:22.094)
obesitycareinletters .org. And you can see the Bill of Rights. And basically, it’s talking about the right to train medical professionals, the right to respect, the right to adequate equipment in medical settings for people of larger body sizes, that sort of thing. And it might be something that will empower you to know what you should expect from…
the medical community. Now, whether you’re going to see that immediately is a different question as we’ve talked about, but it’s a standard that you need to start demanding. We all need to start demanding that standard of care where people of size are respected, whether they’re in a medical setting for some problem unrelated to their weight or because they’re interested in addressing their weight. Either way.
needs to be unbiased care. And the Obesity Bill of Rights is sort of, is meant to be a grassroots movement and to get people to understand what care they should be demanding and expecting. Because, you know, at this point, if I get a doctor who treats what I’m there to see them for, or if my health insurance covers my obesity treatment, I feel lucky.
But you know what? This shouldn’t be a matter of luck. The healthcare should not come down to luck. It’s just, should be what we expect. I mean, when you go to a doctor, you expect to be treated with respect, don’t you? Yeah, of course. And that’s just what should be, that should be the level playing field we start from. Love it. Well, this has been wonderful. Yeah, me too. Yeah, thank you so much. Great to talk to you and…
Look forward to seeing you in the future. I’m sure we’ll get to actually meet live one of these days. Yes, I hope so. Thank you so much. All right, take care. Bye now. Bye.
Bill Jollie (40:29.326)
Thanks so much for listening. Please rate and review the podcast on the platform of your choice so we can reach more people and more people are recommended this podcast. And if you really liked it, the single best way you can help us grow is by telling your friends. Now for all the legal stuff. The views and opinion expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. For my day job, I’m an employee of ABB and appear on this podcast on my own accord and not in the professional capacity as an ABB employee.
All viewpoints provided are my personal opinions and not intended to reflect those of my employer. If you have any questions or comments, please shoot me an email at jolly at interrupt hunger .org. Let’s go spread some joy people.
