#116: “But Isn’t Being Fat Bad for Your Health?”: Unpacking Weight Science with Ragen Chastain

May 6

This week, we’re joined by Ragen Chastain to explore the assumption that continues to uphold diet culture, anti-fat bias, and the deeply engrained fears about body size: “Isn’t being fat bad for your health?”

Ragen helps us unpack the science — as well as the social rhetoric — that continues to perpetuate lies about fatness, health, and disease. And oh yes, we get into pharmaceutical companies, weight loss drugs, and celebrity culture.

Tune in to hear more about…

What's on Ragen's plate
Ragen's food and body story, starting in childhood
Dance culture and body image
The origin of the word "obese"
The many problems with the term "obesity epidemic"
Weight stigma in healthcare and its impact on health outcomes
Weight cycling, yo-yo dieting, and cardiovascular risk
How the weight-loss industry pathologizes bodies for profit
How public opinion and medical guidelines shape the myths about weight and health
Diabetes and weight
Cardiovascular risk factors and weight
The funding and design of weight loss studies
The flaws in the research on how weight and health are related
The science behind why intentional weight loss doesn’t work
Medical education and anti-fat bias in physicians
What the weight loss industry continues to get wrong about weight stigma
If not weight loss for health, then what?

About Ragen:

Ragen Chastain is a speaker, writer, researcher, Board Certified Patient Advocate, multi-certified health and fitness professional, and thought leader in weight science, weight stigma, and health. She is the author of the Weight and Healthcare newsletter, the blog Dances With Fat, the book Fat: The Owner's Manual, editor of the Praeger Anthology "The Politics of Size," co-author of the HAES Health Sheets. In her free time, she is a national dance champion, triathlete, and marathoner who holds the Guinness World Record for Heaviest Woman to Complete a Marathon. She lives in Oregon with her fiancée Julianne and their adorable foster dogs.

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