Advancing Fat Justice: Jones, Cory, and Kaufman Featured in Portland Monthly
Congratulations to our Director of Applied Learning Jamie Jones, Assistant Professor of Health Promotion and Community Health Hannah Cory, and retired School of Public Health faculty member Debbie Kaufman on being featured in Portland Monthly Magazine. In the article, “The Public Health Educators Changing How We Think About Fat,” they share their perspectives on fat justice and anti-fat bias in public health education, highlighting the importance of challenging harmful narratives and advancing more equitable, inclusive approaches to health and well-being.
The Public Health Educators Changing How We Think About Fat
At OHSU-PSU’s School of Public Health, a group of students and professors are debunking outdated beliefs about weight and wellness.
For a good chunk of her life, Debbie Kaufman had tried to lose weight. She tried aerobics. She tried hiking groups. Nothing worked. “I quit them all because I didn’t lose weight,” she says. “But all of those things would have been good for my health if I continued.”
Kaufman is the founder of the Body Liberation & Public Health Project, a resource for public health professionals to learn about weight stigma and the ways antifatness negatively impacts our health. Antifatness, or bias and discrimination against people in larger bodies, has become a crisis in its own right. A 2003 study found that weight-based harassment or bullying increased suicidal ideation and depression in teens, and that children exposed to antifat prejudice in physical-activity settings were less likely to enjoy or participate in sports or exercise.
But in health care settings, antifat bias can be even more hazardous. Fat people are often misdiagnosed, or their actual condition untreated, when medical providers assume weight is the cause of their health problems. A 2001 study in the International Journal of Obesity indicated that fat patients were more likely to get shorter visits with doctors, and that antifat stigma at the doctor’s office has kept many plus-size patients from returning to health care settings for years, putting them at higher risk for serious health complications.