Weight Stigma Resource Hub

This briefing has been developed to highlight the important role Elected Members can play in tackling weight stigma. Suitable for local authority officers to use to brief their members on weight stigma, the impacts on the local community and what they can do to help put an end to weight stigma.

This checklist has been designed to give the writer, trainer or health and social care professional the confidence and tools to examine whether the content of an article, training package, blog, policy paper or report is free from stigmatising language, stereotypes and images.

This presentation provides an overview of weight stigma, where it can be found, discuss the evidence base and actions to eliminate weight stigma from our own practice. The PowerPoint presentation is accompanied by delivery notes and should take roughly 30 minutes to deliver, plus time for questions and discussion.

At the #FoodActive2021 conference in November 2021 we discussed what we can all do to eliminate weight stigma, hearing from a wide range of academics, charities and lived experience. This Conference Hub contains a full recording of the event, and speakers presentations.

This briefing was developed to provide further information on weight stigma and discrimination to support the Local Authority Healthy Weight Declaration. However, it can also be used as a standalone reference document for weight stigma and its consequences on the public’s health.

Elizabeth Boniface is a Health Improvement Principal at Leeds City Council. In this case study Liz shares detail about the work she has been involved in to help address weight stigma in Leeds, including conducting local research to understand Leeds’ residents’ experiences of weight stigma and marking World Obesity Day.

Holly Campbell is a Public Health Improvement Coordinator at Doncaster Council, and is currently leading on the Compassionate Approach to Weight across the borough. In this case study Holly will provide detail on how they went about this approach, how it has changed their current systems and any key learning along the way.

Gemma Holdsworth is a Healthy Families Specialist and Jill Harrison is Healthy Families Practitioner based within the Healthy Families team, which is community service within the 0-19 years Integrated Health & Wellbeing Service, Bolton NHS ft. They presented their Health Gains approach at the #FoodActive2021 Conference and have kindly submitted an indepth case study to share more detail about their approach and how they went about it.

Angela Chesworth is a passionate patient advocate on obesity, and in this guest blog she shares her experience of living with obesity throughout her life, and what action she would like to see to help reduce weight stigma and discrimination.

Alison Millbourn, Public Health Manager at Kirklees Council blogs for Food Active to share details about the council’s weight neutral and compassionate approach in their bid to reduce the prevalence of obesity locally.

Dr James Nobles of the University of Bristol and Dr Stuart Flint of the University of Leeds blogged for Food Active to mark World Obesity Day 2018, sharing their top 5 pieces of advice for addressing weight stigma.

World Obesity’s Image Bank forms a gallery of free-to-use images to ensure accurate, non-biased, respectful images are widely available. Please ensure you read their guidelines and terms of use.

The Rudd Center Media Gallery is a free resource offering a range of images of people living with obesity, free from stigmatisation. Please ensure you read and agree to the following Terms of Use before accessing the videos/images in the Media Gallery.

The Obesity Action Coalition offers more than 500 bias-free images for non-commercial use only. The purpose of this gallery is to help refocus the perception of obesity, and change the perception of individuals affected by this chronic disease.