How and why weight stigma drives the obesity ‘epidemic’ and harms health

 A rapidly growing set of studies now shows that these associations cannot simply be explained by higher-weight individuals’ poorer health or greater likelihood of perceiving weight-related discrimination. In fact, the mere perception of oneself as being overweight, across the BMI spectrum (i.e., even among individuals at a ‘normal’ BMI), is prospectively associated with biological markers of poorer health, including unhealthy blood pressure, C-reactive protein, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose, and HbA1c levels. Emerging evidence indicates that this harmful cycle may even be intergenerational, wherein children perceived as overweight by their parents are at greater risk for excess weight gain across childhood, independent of the child’s actual weight. Collectively, these findings suggest that stigma attached to being ‘overweight’ is a significant yet unrecognized agent in the causal pathway from weight status to health.

https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-018-1116-5