Five Ways Health Care Can Be Better for Fat People

Discussions about how to better accommodate fat persons' needs in health care settings tend to focus on how to reduce stigma and improve equipment (eg, scanners). While important, such efforts must address underlying ideological foundations of stigma and equipment inadequacy, including thin-centrism, a tendency to pathologize fatness, inadequate representation of fat people in health care organizational leadership, and power differentials between clinicians and health care seekers. This article describes how weight-based exclusion and oppression play out in clinical settings and practice as dysfunctional power sharing and suggests strategies for improving clinical relationships.