CNSU Medical Students Provide Hope for the Future

Photo of event flyer at California Northstate University (CNSU) on fat phobia in medicine.

by Lily O'Hara MPH, PhD, Associate Professor of Public Health, Qatar University, Qatar

[Editor Note: This is a follow-up posting to the January 19, 2021 blog post, Changing Perspectives for Medical Students, and shares the experience of presenting to medical students from the presenter’s viewpoint.]

In December 2020, I had the great pleasure of presenting a webinar to medical students at California Northstate University (CNSU) on fat phobia in medicine. In the webinar, I discussed concepts related to weight-based oppression, and how fat people and people with larger bodies can experience such oppression in encounters with medical settings and medical practitioners.

I framed the issue around ethical care, and asked students to consider the possibility that the quality of care they provide and that fat people receive (or not) is dependent on their own internalized attitudes, values and beliefs about fatness and fat people. We talked about how those internalized ideas translate into their behaviors and the social, economic, cultural and built environments in which they work.

The students were highly engaged in the discussion and genuinely interested in learning more about their options when working in a health service partnership with a fat person. For many, this was the first time they had even considered NOT weighing a client, NOT discussing their weight at every opportunity, or NOT making assumptions about fat people's behaviors or intentions. It was also the first time many of them had even considered their own internalized fat phobia, and how that might implicitly or explicitly translate into the care they provide.

My thanks to Alexis Wildman and her team at CNSU for organizing the event, and to NAAFA for providing me with the opportunity to work with such impressive young medical students. I finished the webinar feeling hopeful that the next generation of doctors might finally dismantle fat phobia in medicine.

Portrait of Dr. Lily O’Hara

Lily O'Hara, MPH, PhD is a health promotion practitioner, researcher, activist and Associate Professor of Public Health at Qatar University - Specializes in critical health promotion, fat studies, weight justice, and the Health at Every Size® approach and is an advisor to the NAAFA Board of Directors.

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