Addressing weight bias among pediatric healthcare clinical staff

Children with obesity may experience weight-based discrimination as a result of weight bias and stigma, which can have deleterious effects on their health and wellbeing, including increased risk of dysregulated, maladaptive, and disordered eating such as restriction, purging, and binging. Prior work has shown that weight bias occurs from healthcare workers caring for adults, but less is known about the prevalence of weight bias in the pediatric healthcare setting.

We aimed to determine what proportion of pediatric healthcare professionals had attitudes of weight bias at our own institution by constructing a survey with questions from validated weight bias survey tools. Results revealed nearly half of all respondents had witnessed another healthcare professional make negative remarks about a patient with obesity, and many shared that they lacked the proper education/training and equipment to properly care for patients with obesity. Based on survey results, we created an electronic-based training module to educate healthcare professionals on weight bias and discrimination and how they may negatively affect care provided to children and families with obesity at our institution. Engagement with hospital leadership was a key strategy to ensure participation from medical and nursing/allied health staff in the survey, although only nursing/allied health leadership required the online training module resulting in limited physician engagement.

Feedback received regarding the training module was overwhelmingly positive.

Our efforts illustrate that weight bias and discrimination exist in pediatric institutions, and that participation in a tailored electronic-based training module may be viewed as a helpful tool to raise awareness of how weight-based discrimination and bias can negatively affect patient care.