Renaming obesity won't fix weight stigma overnight. Here's what we really need to do

• Some researchers think the term “obesity” itself is part of the problem, and are calling for a name change to reduce stigma.
• We study the stigma that surrounds obesity – around the time of pregnancy, among health professionals and health students, and in public health more widely.
• Here’s what’s really needed to reduce weight stigma.

Weight stigma is common

• Up to 42% of adults living in larger bodies experience weight stigma.
• Weight stigma is associated with harms including increased cortisol levels (the main stress hormone in the body), negative body image, increased weight gain, and poor mental health.
• Weight stigma may even pose a greater threat to someone’s health than increasing body size.

Should we rename obesity?

• Calls to remove or rename health conditions or identifications to reduce stigma are not new.
• Following many years of protests and activism, the term and condition were removed from the globally recognised classification of mental health disorders.
• Perhaps it is finally time to follow suit and rename obesity.

A new name needs to go beyond BMI

• First, most people use the term for people with a body-mass index (BMI) of 30kg/m² or above.
• Most, if not all, public health organisations also use BMI to categorise obesity and make assumptions about health.
• However, BMI alone is not enough to accurately summarise someone’s health.

Is obesity a disease anyway?

• Yet there is still no universal consensus on whether obesity is a disease.
• By this definition, obesity may not be classified as a disease until after harm from the additional weight occurs.
• Renaming obesity may improve public understanding that while obesity is often associated with an increase in BMI, the increased BMI itself is not the disease.

Workshopping alternatives

Before deciding to rename obesity, we need discussions between obesity and stigma experts, health-care professionals, members of the public, and crucially, people living with obesity. Such discussions can ensure robust evidence informs any future decisions, and proposed new terms are not also stigmatising.

Read more:
Today's disease names are less catchy, but also less likely to cause stigma

What else can we do?

• Our constant exposure to the socially-defined and acceptable idealisation of smaller bodies (the “thin ideal”) and the pervasiveness of weight stigma means this stigma is deeply ingrained at a societal level.
• Blake Lawrence is a member of The Obesity Society and The Obesity Collective.