2026 Date Coming Soon
In-Person Symposium in Los Angeles, California
Virtual Speaker Series

While not often considered part of multicultural identity, the effects of one’s experience based on body size are often similar to those of racism, classism, ableism, ageism, sexualism, and other marginalized identities. Many forms of social oppression are recognized as intolerable, however, weight stigma remains a socially acceptable form of discrimination affecting targeted individuals' physical and mental health. Notable sizeism in employment, healthcare, and other spaces caused weight stigma to become a social justice issue.

 

The contribution of weight stigma to the violation of human rights is particularly noticeable in health inequities. Weight stigma and related healthcare discrimination often arises from clinicians’ implicit biases toward clients. However, clinicians are expected to demonstrate kindness, caring, and empathy, making their stigmatized behaviors especially harmful. A clinician’s actions can invalidate clients’ emotions, deny their illness, and shame their body, inadvertently modeling disordered behaviors instead of developing motivation for change and recovery.

 

Unchecked weight stigma ruptures the therapeutic alliance and destroys necessary empathy by deepening the shame and poor self-concept clients already experience internally. Many clinicians avoid discussing body size, weight, and body image out of their own concerns with internalized and externalized weight stigma. Yet, multicultural competency requires clinicians to understand the beliefs and behaviors of large-bodied people and sociocultural influences on those individuals, their bodies, their self-esteem, and their relationships. Clinicians must also possess self-awareness of their own vulnerabilities to weight stigma to avoid unintentionally conveying or reinforcing unhealthy beliefs and values.

Because of its role in contributing to unequal healthcare based on body size, weight stigma is arguably an issue of social justice. Social justice calls for the equitable and respectful treatment of all individuals, recognizing that there is never justification for segregating a specific people group for poor treatment. Clinicians are ethically mandated to oppose discriminatory behaviors, including those involved in weight stigma, under the principles of non-maleficence, autonomy, fairness, and advocacy. Therefore, clinicians must be educated about weight stigma, how it functions on a societal level, and how it intersects with other forms of oppression.

​

Learning objectives:

1. Following this presentation, participants will be able to explain common ways body size impacts a person’s experience in the world and the effects it has on individuals under their care.

2. Following this presentation, participants will be able to define weight stigma and explain its effects in clinical mental health practice as they relate to multicultural competency and ethics.

3. Following this presentation, participants will be able to explain and utilize specific strategies for mitigating weight stigma in their clinical practice and beyond.