故事
Let’s talk about… how healthcare professionals can improve access and patient experience.
I'm a clinical dietitian and nutritionist, and currently, I'm a PhD researcher at UCL School of Pharmacy.
Weight-based stigmatisation in healthcare settings is associated with physical and mental health concerns and inequitable healthcare, health disparities and a lack of engagement due to discriminatory practices. Substantial evidence demonstrates that weight stigma can contribute to disordered eating, such as binge eating and emotional eating, increased caloric intake regardless of hunger and the risk of developing obesity.
Educating healthcare professionals in using non-stigmatising language and communication in managing obesity may positively affect the quality of healthcare and adherence outcomes in weight loss programmes and interventions.
Healthcare professionals have a strategic role in delivering brief opportunistic interventions and signposting patients to appropriate services. Interventions to reduce weight stigma in clinical practice with a patient-centred, health-focused approach are more important than ever. Techniques such as motivational interviewing and the 5A's model may facilitate health behaviour change in managing obesity in the primary care setting. Such training sessions can also support primary care practitioners in engaging with patients about weight in a non-stigmatising way.
More research is needed to develop a best-practice model that can be routinely implemented in healthcare settings to foster health behaviour change by using a weight-inclusive, more respectful, empathetic, health-enhancing approach.
Latest Stories and Events
Talk on Modifying Indian Kitchen for Healthy Weight Loss
An interactive talk was organised at Sant Parmanand Hospital on World Obesity Day involving doctors, nurses and other staff members.
OBESITY & DIABETES IN RAMADAN
It's a double celebration in Cheras Baru Health Clinic, Kuala Lumpur. Marking the beginning of the holy fasting month for Muslim by addressing two of the biggest health concern of our time, obesity and diabetes.
World Obesity Day - Musgrove Park Hospital
We promoted World Obesity Day at Musgrove Park Hospital in Somerset.
Barakah Felbers: Rethinking Obesity Through the Lens of Ramadan
At Felda Bersia Health Clinic, we have seen how conversations about obesity often feel like walls rather than bridges. People are told to eat less, move more, as if it were that simple. Advice comes like commands, detached from real lives, real struggles, real routines. We knew something had to change. So we did something different for World Obesity Day this year.