Adopting an International Human Rights Approach in the U.S. to Combat Sizeism and Related Racism and Sexism in Healthcare, Public Health Efforts, and Food Advertising Policy

Evidence of size stigma in U.S. food and health industries is overwhelming. Many policies affecting consumer and patient health and care look to patient Body Mass Index (BMI), a ratio of patient weight to height that anthropologists describe has roots in eugenics, scientific racism, and sexism, and that even the American Medical Association describes as being used for racist exclusion and not encompassing of sex-based differences. Many healthcare policies, public health messages, and food advertising strategies boast goals of reducing BMI in hopes of improving health status, but, in addition to having abhorrent origins, BMI has been shown to be a poor indicator of health. International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, recognize the rights to health and food. The U.S., having ratified or at least signed each of these treaties, should therefore work to prevent sizeism in U.S. health systems and food advertising, phenomena which clearly affects healthcare access and quality, the food landscape, and overall wellbeing for people in the U.S., particularly for fat people, and especially for fat people of color and fat women.