A doctor's words can enforce weight stigma

The language that health care providers use when discussing a child's weight with parents can reinforce negative weight-based stigma and jeopardize discussions about health, finds a study from the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University. The study, which is the first to asses parents' perceptions of common terms used to describe excess weight in children, shows that parents prefer that doctors use the terms "weight" and "unhealthy weight" rather than "fat," "obese," and "extremely obese." The study appears in the October issue of Pediatrics.

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