Before the late 20th century, overweight and obesity were not considered population-wide health risks, but the advent of weight loss drugs in the 1990s accelerated hypermedicalization via BMI use.
AMA J Ethics. 2023; 25(7):E550-558. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.550.
Underlying ideological foundations of stigma and equipment inadequacy include thin-centrism and inadequate representation of fat people in health care organizational leadership.
AMA J Ethics. 2023; 25(7):E528-534. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.528.
Size-based health and beauty ideals emanated from eugenic pseudoscientific postulates, and BMI continues to advance white supremacist embodiment norms.
AMA J Ethics. 2023; 25(7):E535-539. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.535.
Diagnostic utility of weight and body mass index is widely overestimated, and their use as health and wellness measures can be sources of iatrogenic harm.
AMA J Ethics. 2023; 25(7):E540-544. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.540.
While useful in analyzing population trends in relative body weight, BMI possesses multiple shortcomings when used as an individualized health screening tool.
AMA J Ethics. 2023; 25(7):E545-549. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.545.
Natural language processing can be used not only to extract quantifiable facts from individual medical records but also to study variation in a data set.
AMA J Ethics. 2017; 19(3):281-288. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.3.stas1-1703.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Marguerite Reid Schneider, a fourth-year medical student at University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, interviewed Srijan Sen, MD, PhD, about how mental health care and medical culture can be changed to benefit medical trainees.