Dr James B. Young joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article: “Does Osler’s Aequanimitas Inform Our Contemporary Pursuit of Stillness?”

This drawing considers the importance of understanding history’s role in contextualizing many patients’ present-day health care experiences.

This comic considers how patients work to use the right vocabulary to help their physicians help them.

Dr Whitney Riley Linsenmeyer joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article: “Should Clinicians Care About How Food Behaviors Express Gender Identity?”

Body mass index cutoffs are routinely used to assess eligibility for gender-affirming surgeries, yet they are not empirically based.

Healthist views about body shape and weight are oppressive and lead to pernicious harms, especially to members of vulnerable groups. 

Weight loss is not a safe, effective, or permanent method of health promotion, and pharmacotherapeutical approaches pose specific risks to adolescents. 

Use of body mass index as a health care metric is controversial, especially in candidacy assessments for gender-affirming surgery.  

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. 

In the early 20th century, the United States, as an industrialized nation with more food than ever, began to grapple with obesity.