Ep. 16: Fat Shaming Linked to Greater Health Risks - Dr. Rebecca Pearl

Fat Shaming Linked to Greater Health Risks with Dr. Rebecca Pearl  Dr. Rebecca Pearl is a clinical psychologist and an assistant professor of Psychology at the Department of Psychiatry at Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Her research revolves around weight bias and stigma, how it affects the overall health of a person, and the possible solutions and interventions to this concern.   Dr. Pearl joins me today to share the effects of fat shaming and weight bias internalization to a person’s physical and psychological health. As she identifies some of the causes of this bias, Dr. Pearl also shares their findings on how to counter this weight stigma and how the concept of dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, can play a significant role in promoting change in an individual’s thinking and behavior towards his or her weight and overall health.   “More and more research is highlighting the negative effects of weight stigma on health. There still seems to be this misconception that stigma is necessary or even helpful to motivate people to change their health behaviors and that is not the case.”   – Dr. Rebecca Pearl  This Week on the Every Body Podcast:  Examples of weight stigma and discrimination in political and public health campaigns  Relationship between weight bias internalization and cardiometabolic syndrome  The key to understanding a person’s health picture  Why she uses BMI in her research and studies  Why “obesity” is a controversial term  Promising results of an 8-week intervention program she created to combat internalize fat stigma  More information on the study     Rate, Share, & Inspire Others to Love  Every Body        Thank you for joining me this week on the Every Body podcast. If you enjoyed this week’s episode, head over to iTunes, subscribe to the show and leave a review to help us spread the word to Every Body!    Don’t forget to visit our website, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and join our mailing list so you never miss an episode!