Posted by ImproveCareNow™ on August 03, 2026
When we look around, we quickly notice that virtually everything comes in different shapes and sizes - from the blueberries in the fridge to the pets in our home to our own bodies. Body diversity is the seemingly simple idea that each person’s body is unique; we may have bigger ears than our siblings, or a longer torso than our friends, or flatter feet than our peers at school. This is a normal and wonderful part of what makes us unique!
Unfortunately, we also live in a world where we get a lot of messages about our bodies that can be very harmful and make us feel like our bodies are “wrong,” like that we should have flawless skin without pimples (even when it is totally normal to have pimples and imperfect skin!), straight white teeth (teeth also comes in all shapes and sizes!), and live in smaller bodies. In our everyday lives we receive messaging in advertisements, social media, TV shows, movies, and unwittingly from family and friends that reinforces the idea that a larger body is “bad” and that smaller bodies are “good,” this is called weight stigma when there are stigmatizing views about people who live in larger bodies.
Imagine for a moment that you are at a restaurant and you see a five-year-old boy living in a small body enjoying a slice of pizza - you may think, “Yum, that pizza looks good and that kid is loving it!” Now imagine that you are at the same restaurant and you see a five-year-old boy living in a larger body enjoying a slice of pizza - you may think, “Hm, it doesn’t look like he needs the pizza, that wasn’t a healthy choice, his parents should have ordered him a salad instead.”
In our culture, we have all experienced negative messaging about bodies especially the idea that larger bodies are “bad” and that having a larger body means something negative about the person. And yet this is not scientific or true! Health is multifactorial and not determined by one thing - including body shape or weight - and all bodies are good bodies deserving of care, respect, and dignity.
Autumn's experience
I remember being a 12-year-old little girl that always dreaded going to my GI visits because I had a GI doctor that was always focusing on my body and weight rather than what I was there for, my IBD and how I was feeling. I would always have to sit, see, and be shown these weight charts on the computer screen so he could show me where I was versus where other kids were, despite my actual health. I was a healthy, young, and very active kid that played soccer and football, with practices all throughout the week every week. My IBD was being very well managed and I was thriving! Those things never seemed to matter though, just the focus on me and my body compared to others was all that mattered to him.
I never felt comfortable with my GI doctor, I always felt like I wasn't good enough and my body wasn’t good enough and was wrong. I always tried to please my GI doctor and wouldn’t allow myself to eat anything the morning/day of my appointments and would limit myself to a little water to try and satisfy my hunger until after my appointment and being weighed. Hoping to satisfy him by being that half a pound or pound less, but I never did please him.
Previous research has shown that people of all ages - including young people - who live in larger bodies tend to have more negative healthcare experiences where their doctors are less likely to believe their health concerns, are more likely to not want to go to a medical visits because of worry about being judged and ‘blamed’ for their bodies, and less likely to receive proactive healthcare. We also know that people who experience weight stigma (which is an internal experience) can also experience more body image dissatisfaction and disordered eating, which has a significant negative psychosocial impact. For young people with IBD who already have higher rates of body image concerns and disordered eating, experiencing weight stigma puts further strain on their psychosocial health.
Altogether, the negative view our society has taught us about body shapes and sizes is harmful to people’s health and does not support health equity. Together, we can do better so that all people receive compassionate, respectful, and dignified care!
Autumn's experience
Having a whole person care team, when I finally got enough courage to share my challenging and painful experiences I had with my GI doctor and feelings around eating and my body, has been very helpful and made things easier for me. If I wasn’t already connected with my GI psychologist at the time, I probably wouldn’t have ever shared what I’d been experiencing. Slowly, through other things that I had shared, I gained trust and grew more comfortable with my psychologist. Sharing other things made it a little easier to share [about my weight stigma experiences] once I felt somewhat ready to, knowing I had someone I could tell that I trusted! At the time, I knew it had been significantly impacting me for so long and I just kept dealing with it and thinking it was normal, I guess. As it became a lot more impactful and I just wasn’t myself, I realized this isn’t okay or normal and I gained the courage to share with my psychologist (though it took many, many months before I ever even considered opening up about it!)
So, how do we improve and make changes around weight stigma? Here are some tips & tricks for patients & families:
When you are at a medical visit, you can ask for a blinded weight where you step up on the scale backwards so your weight can be discretely recorded without you seeing the number or hearing it said aloud. Weight is a number that does not define you or anyone else, there are way more important data points in your health to focus on! Weight is often important to collect at a pediatric IBD clinic visit since your specific weight trend is one part of a larger constellation of data points to help your team know how your body is doing, how you are feeling, and how well-managed your IBD is.
- This can be especially helpful for young people on infusion treatments that are weight-based and where weight is collected before each infusion.
- Try something like, “I don’t want to see or hear my weight, I want to focus on other parts of my health. I am going to step up on the scale backwards and please do not tell me my weight."
You can politely say no to getting your weight and share that you would like to talk about it more with your doctor to understand if and why you are recommended to get a weight today. If you are recommended to get a weight, please consider asking for a blinded weight.
- Try, “I am not comfortable getting my weight taken right now. I would like to talk with my doctor about if and why I may need my weight taken today.”
Ask for your After Visit Summary to have the weight data removed from the first page so you can focus on the recommendations and next steps in your care!
- Try, “Can you please make sure my weight is not on my After Visit Summary when you give it to me?”
Consider sharing with your pediatric IBD team that talking about your weight makes you feel uncomfortable and this is a sensitive topic for you. This can be helpful so that your team knows how to best support you in your ongoing care!
- Try, “I want to share something hard with you as my doctor because I trust you. I don’t like talking about my body and weight when I come to my GI visits, it makes me think negatively about my body and makes it harder for me to feel comfortable in my skin. Can we not talk about my weight and instead talk about my health more broadly to help me feel comfortable and empowered in my body?”
If you use social media, go through your social media accounts like a detective - are there content creators that make you feel negatively about yourself and your body or make you compare your body to theirs? Consider muting or unfollowing them! It can also be helpful to diversify your social media feed so you see people of all shapes and sizes to accurately reflect the true body diversity in our world on our phones!
- It can be awesome and so supportive to talk about what we are seeing on social media with our families and trusted adults. There is research showing that young women experience an increase in body image dissatisfaction in less than 10 minutes of using Instagram! Being able to talk through the images and videos we are seeing and how they make us feel about our own bodies and selves is so brave!
Below we have shared some resources where you can learn more! Please note, it is important to pause and take a break if you need to. Learning about weight stigma can be both exciting, as you ‘unlearn’ harmful messages, and it can be emotional at times - go at your own pace 💚💙
Podcasts
- The Maintenance Phase
- Full Bloom podcast: What does body-positive adolescent healthcare look like? (aired 5/11/2022)
- Pediatric Meltdown: Words Matter – Talking about Weight and BMI (aired on 8/27/2020)
- imPACt Podcast: The impact of IBD on body image and relationships with food (aired on 3/19/2021)
- Vox Conversations: The racist origins of fat phobia (aired on 6/16/2022)
- Today Explained: What Ozempic can’t fix (aired on 2/26/24)
Books
- Darpinian S, Sterling W, Aggarwal S. Raising Body Positive Teens. Jessica Kingsley Publishers; 2022.
- Gordon A. “You Just Need to Lose Weight.” Beacon Press; 2023.
- Kite L, Kite L. More than a Body: Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament. Mariner Books; 2021.
- Manne K. Unshrinking. Crown; 2024.
- Sole-Smith V. Fat Talk. Henry Holt and Company; 2023.
- Strings S. Fearing the Black Body. NYU Press; 2019.
Videos
- ‘Embrace’ documentary: https://www.bodyimagemovement.com/embrace-film/
- ‘Embrace Kids’ documentary: See the Film - The Embrace Collective
- ‘Your Fat Friend’ documentary: https://www.yrfatfriendfilm.com/
- NowThis Impact video on how fat phobia is related to racism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-dwCWGm_sY
Body image and disordered eating are different than weight stigma and are also overlapping for many, so here are two ImproveCareNow resources that can help.
- Body Image Toolkit - created by members of the ImproveCareNow Patient Advisory Council
- Disordered Eating Toolkit - created by members of the ImproveCareNow Patient Advisory Council