At a time when obesity is seen as a serious public health threat, research has found a growing prejudice against fat people. In 2013 American Medical Association designated Obesity as a disease, yet insurance companies do not offer treatment choices to patients.
Already, the social consequences of being overweight and obese are serious and
pervasive. Overweight and obese individuals are often targets of bias
and stigma, and they are vulnerable to negative attitudes in multiple
domains of living including places of employment, educational
institutions, medical facilities, the mass media, and interpersonal
relationships.
The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale
University published a study suggesting that male jurors didn't
administer blind justice when it came to plus-size female defendants.
Female jurors displayed no prejudice against fat defendants but men --
especially lean men -- were far more likely to slap a guilty verdict on
an overweight woman and were quicker to label her a repeat offender with
an "awareness of her crimes."
Another recent study by the Center for Creative Leadership found that
top managers with a high body mass index were judged more harshly and
seen as less effective than their slimmer colleagues by their peers,
both at work and in interpersonal relationships.
When it comes to TREATMENT OF OBESITY: Insurance companies, step on the sidelines.
Payers, offer more sympathy to those who struggle with psychiatric issues,drugs, alcohol,
nicotine, impulsive shopping, sex addictions, pornography addictions,
and other problems designated as orphan disease. There are even federally funded programs to pull people
from the pits of these addictions.
Obese patient more often have to gain weight by 50lbs to get interventions. Is this fair?
Obesity can happen to anyone, if you are skinny, it can happen to your kid, someone dear to you.
If you have an facebook accont: please fight for obesity: join the obesity treatment advocacy group
