Weight and Healthcare

with Ragen Chastain
  • 3.9 (13)
  • MEDICINE
  • UPDATED SEMIWEEKLY
Weight and Healthcare

Examining the intersections of weight science, weight stigma, and healthcare and what evidence, ethics, and lived experience teach us about healthcare and public health best practices for higher-weight people. weightandhealthcare.substack.com

  1. 10 HR. AGO

    Three Options When Your Healthcare is Compromised by Weight Stigma

    Higher-weight people too often find themselves in healthcare situations where they are being treated poorly/unequally because of weight stigma. These situations are, sadly, too numerous to count and in some cases need to be addressed in very specific ways. In many cases though, there are some standard responses that higher-weight patients and/or those advocating for them can use to try to get appropriate care. Get full access to Weight and Healthcare at weightandhealthcare.substack.com/subscribe

    8 min

  2. 12/21/2024

    Reader Question - What Is Number Needed to Treat?

    This came up in our monthly subscriber Ask Me Anything. When I break down research I often talk about using absolute risk reduction and statistical significance to determine the efficacy of an intervention. Another number that helps determine efficacy is the Number Needed to Treat (NNT). This number helps us understand how many patients need to be treated with an intervention in order to avoid a single negative outcome.  Get full access to Weight and Healthcare at weightandhealthcare.substack.com/subscribe

    4 min

  3. 12/11/2024

    Intentional Weight Loss and Lottery Logic

    You can’t win if you don’t play. That’s what the PowerBall ad said. I could pay $2 for a ticket and possibly win a $20 million jackpot. Of course, I have a 99.9999997 percent chance of losing which may be why my stats teacher used to say that the lottery was a tax on people who didn’t pay attention in her class. So why am I going on about the lottery in a newsletter about the intersections of weight science, weight stigma, and healthcare? Because I hear a similar type of “logic” all the time from the weight loss industry, lay people, even doctors. Get full access to Weight and Healthcare at weightandhealthcare.substack.com/subscribe

    5 min

  4. 12/07/2024

    Reader Question: What’s With the New Child Growth Charts?

    I got the following question from reader Naomi “Thanks for the information on the CDC growth charts. I wonder if you could talk about how to understand them. My pediatrician said that my child is more than 120 percent of the 95th percentile. What the h e double hockey sticks does that even mean? Help!”  I’m happy to try to explain. Get full access to Weight and Healthcare at weightandhealthcare.substack.com/subscribe

    10 min

  5. 12/04/2024

    New Study Supports Weight-Neutral Health

    Today we’re going to talk about a new study called whose goal was to assess the “relationship of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and Body Mass Index (BMI) on both cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all- cause mortality risk” by Nathan R Weeldreyer, Jeison C De Guzman, Craig Paterson, Jason D Allen, Glenn A Gaesser, and Siddhartha S Angadi. Get full access to Weight and Healthcare at weightandhealthcare.substack.com/subscribe

    12 min

  6. 11/27/2024

    We Must Stop Blaming Higher-Weight Bodies for Healthcare's Failures

    There are many ways that weight stigma occurs in healthcare. One that is harmful on multiple levels happens when higher-weight people are blamed for the ways in which healthcare fails them. This occurs when a patient is blamed for being “too big” for something they need.  Get full access to Weight and Healthcare at weightandhealthcare.substack.com/subscribe

    5 min

  7. 11/23/2024

    What Is Clinical Obesity?

    I’ve now had eleven different doctors ask me about this article, so let’s talk about it! Here is one of the emails: “I’m an MD and I just read this article in Medscape about “clinical ob*sity.” Should I be worried? I feel like I should be worried. I understand it hasn’t happened yet, but it seems like one of those things that will happen all at once without any chance to pushback. Any ideas on how to handle this?”  Get full access to Weight and Healthcare at weightandhealthcare.substack.com/subscribe

    12 min

  8. 11/16/2024

    How NOT to handle a patient weigh-in (and what to do instead)

    Regular readers may know that while speaking and writing are my primary work, I’m also a Board Certified Patient Advocate and I sometimes work directly with patients, typically in emergency or complex medical situations. Recently I was advocating for a patient at a cardiology appointment (who has given me permission to share this.) I was waiting outside the treatment room while my patient got settled, near the area where the scale that is used for weigh-ins was located. In this practice each cardiologist has a nurse and the nurse is responsible for getting weight as well as actual vital signs. As I was standing there a nurse brought a patient over and asked them to step on the scale. The patient made an “Ugh” noise and the nurse laughed and said “I know, weighing in is the worst. I postponed my last appointment by two weeks so that I could lose five pounds first.” At that exact moment I was called into my patient’s treatment room and so I switched my focus 100% to the patient but I am reaching out to start a dialog about this at the practice.  So, what went wrong, and what go be done better? Get full access to Weight and Healthcare at weightandhealthcare.substack.com/subscribe

    5 min
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Ratings & Reviews

3.9
out of 5
13 Ratings

About

Examining the intersections of weight science, weight stigma, and healthcare and what evidence, ethics, and lived experience teach us about healthcare and public health best practices for higher-weight people. weightandhealthcare.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    with Ragen Chastain
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2025
  • Episodes
    169
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Ragen Chastain
  • Show Website
    Weight and Healthcare

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