Welcome to The Weight and Healthcare Newsletter

A new healthcare-specific publication from Ragen Chastain (speaker, writer, trained researcher, co-author of the HAES Health Sheets,) exploring weight science, weight stigma, and healthcare.

As I’m sitting down to write this, I can’t help but reflect on the journey that got me here. I started using my background in research methods and statistics to study the intersections of weight and health about 20 years ago as a personal project (at the time I didn’t know about the weight-neutral health paradigm and I was actually looking for the “best diet”!) By 2009 I was writing and speaking about the weight-neutral health paradigm, weight science, and the impacts of weight stigma in all aspects of fat people’s lives, including healthcare. In 2012 I officially moved to doing this work full-time.

I often say I have a dream job that I wish didn’t exist. Which is to say that, given the world we live in and my particular skills, knowledge, and personality, this is the work I most want to be doing. And I’m deeply grateful and privileged to get to do it as just one member of an incredible community, many of whom have been doing it since before I was born and/or with far less privilege than I have. But at the end of the day, I still wish we lived in a world where this work didn’t need to be done at all and I could just go be a struggling mediocre stand-up comic or something!

Since I started this work, by far the most desperate and heart-wrenching requests I get for help and support are around healthcare. Weight stigma at every level and facet of healthcare does tremendous, sometimes irreparable harm, and it does more harm to those of higher weights and those with multiple marginalized identities. And perhaps the most frustrating thing about that is not just that it’s unnecessary, but that there is a much more helpful, much less harmful paradigm that we can learn about and apply simply by examining the evidence and lived experience.

In working with practitioners, patients, and advocates I find that I’m often sending them to multiple places to get the information I’ve put out about this. Over the years I’ve received a lot of requests to write more about it  and to create a publication where this information is specifically centered, so that it will be easy to find and easy to point people to.

This is that publication, it’s launching today! I could not be more excited about it, and you can subscribe to it (with a free or paid subscription!)

Before we start

This first post is just about getting acquainted. During launch week I’ll be posting one piece each day, some new writing and some classics so that we have the basics in the archive. After that I’ll be publishing twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. These pieces will include information and strategies to help fat people deal with medical weight stigma, research breakdowns, discussions of best practices for higher weight patients in healthcare and public health, conversations with practitioners and other experts, real world case studies, answers to questions that you submit, and more. All of these will be available with the free subscription.

If you want to support my work and/or want to get paid subscriber perks, you can subscribe for $5 a month or $50 a year (note that if you are already a DancesWithFat member, the paid subscriber perks will be included with your other member benefits, check your email or the member page or email me at ragen@sizedforsuccess.com to get the details)

Paid subscribers will have access to participate in a new discussion thread every Friday, and they’ll receive audio commentary on some of the weekly posts (kind of like the director’s commentary on a movie,) and behind-the-scenes bonuses from my research and interviews that don’t make it into the final posts.

Plus, of course you’ll get my undying gratitude for your support of my ability to research and write about this. (Of all the things I write about, this topic is definitely the most time-consuming, difficult, and emotionally draining, since I’m often writing about harm that I am or could be personally subjected to.)

If you want a paid subscription but you’re not able to afford it please just email me at ragen@sizedforsuccess.com and ask for a comp subscription and I will sign you up, no questions asked!

You can subscribe now (with a free or paid subscription), and know that for the first few weeks everything will be free so that the community can get a sense of what’s available, then it will switch over to free and paid content.

A Little Good News Before You Go?

I know that sometimes it feels like weight stigma is so entrenched in healthcare that things won’t get better. But I can tell you that I’ve seen things change firsthand since I started this, even among practitioners who seem really entrenched.

A few months ago, I was hired to give a talk about weight-inclusive care and best practices for caring for higher weight patients to a private medical practice.

I give this talk quite a bit and, as happens from time to time, one of the doctors was outright hostile throughout. I tried to answer his questions calmly and offered to continue dialog at any time if he wanted to explore the research on his own. I got this e-mail from him:

"I'm writing to thank you and apologize, not necessarily in that order! I know that I was ...resistant to what you were teaching our practice initially. I also know that I treated you rudely and I'm sorry. When you said you know that sometimes doctors have a hard time learning from people who aren't doctors I don't know if you were talking to me, but I now know that you were talking about me. I'm working on it. I'm also working on being more weight inclusive in my practice. Things that you said really stuck with me and as I've been reading the research you mentioned I kept having experiences working with my larger patients that reminded me of exactly what you have been teaching about. And I'm already seeing positive benefits to focusing on behaviors rather than weight loss. Bottom line - You are helping me be a better doctor and I'm grateful."

Thanks for reading and considering subscribing. Together we’ll create the healthcare, and the world, that we need and deserve!

I also want to give special thanks to Virginia Sole-Smith from the fabulous newsletter Burnt Toast, for all of her help getting this going!