Media & Research Roundup - January 2025

Jan 21

*[Image description: A photo of book shelves full of books with hanging lightbulbs lining the front.]*

By Bill and Terri Weitze with additional contributions from the NAAFA Communications Committee

CONTENT WARNING: Some articles featured in the Media & Research Roundup may refer to stigmatizing events or use stigmatizing language.

December 2024: Artist Angel Rodriguez-Diaz’s Yemaya, The Myth of Venus, and La Primavera will be on display at the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) through September 14. 2025. The recent acquisition of Yemaya completes Rodriguez-Diaz’s The Goddess Triptych at SAMA.

December 6, 2024: While many people love reality TV, the lack of body diversity on these shows does not reflect reality and the negative message can be internalized by the viewers.

December 8, 2024: A recent study finds that in many instances, but particularly with liver damage, fatter people often have less damage following blunt force abdominal trauma, indicating a protective factor.

December 10, 2024: ABC News Australia talks to various women about their experiences with weight stigma from healthcare practitioners.

December 13, 2024: Fat activist and eating disorders treatment advocate Ally Duvall explains how healthcare practitioners used weight shaming to deny her reproductive health care.

December 16, 2024: Due to a shortage of GLP-1 weight loss drugs, the government has allowed compounding pharmacies to legally produce and sell knock-off versions, causing death and injury.

December 17, 2024: In an essay, new mother Rachel Kramer Bussel, explains why she chose not to include her daughter’s birth weight on the birth announcements.

December 18, 2024: A study finds that white people use weight-loss drugs more than Black, Hispanic, and Asian individuals. This article from UCLA Health explores the possible explanations for differences in access and use.

December 18, 2024: Researchers find that gestational weight loss may increase risks for adverse perinatal outcomes for women in all obesity classes.

December 22, 2024: The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s 2024 Community Health Survey found that while the rates of walking and moderate physical activity rose, the rate of obesity and diagnoses of hypertension and diabetes also rose, which provides an opportunity for people to examine the fallacy that fat people are not usually as active as thin people.

December 24, 2024: Metabolic flexibility allows our bodies to switch from one fuel source to another based on what we have eaten and what we are doing. Intermittent fasting supposedly takes advantage of this, but it did not improve metabolic flexibility in mice with obesity and type 2 diabetes in this study. Adding to the fact that research has found that intermittent fasting can be dangerous, this study is yet another reason to avoid this diet-culture practice.

December 26, 2024: An article in The New York Times gives pros and cons from healthcare practitioners on no longer requiring weigh-ins by their patients at every visit; and how weight-neutral care can lead to better health outcomes.

December 28, 2024: In critically ill patients, overweight and obese BMI categories were associated with a lower risk of mortality. Patients categorized as underweight, were associated with a greater risk of mortality.

December 28, 2024: Ragen Chastain presents her 2024 Weight and Healthcare Roundup in her Weight and Healthcare newsletter.

December 31, 2024: The head of the Dietetics Department at Medicover Hospital in Kharghar Navi Mumbai discusses the negative effects of weight stigma and discrimination, and provides tips on how to embrace body positivity in the upcoming New Year.

January 2, 2025: Researchers work to develop a pharmacokinetic model of intravenous lidocaine in higher-weight patients to achieve appropriate dosing concentrations and avoid overdosing or toxicity.

January 4, 2025: Ragen Chastain offers three options for fat patients who believe their healthcare is compromised by weight stigma.

January 4, 2025: VO2 max measures the efficiency of the heart, lungs, blood vessels, and muscles working together, and gives a much better metric for overall health than BMI. An article from the University of Virginia School of Medicine has more information on VO2 max.

January 6, 2025: A study finds that weight stigma harms mental health much more than being fat per se. In other words, it’s not being fat that is causing psychosocial distress; it’s how they are treated by others because they are fat.