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

Underlying ideological foundations of stigma and equipment inadequacy include thin-centrism and inadequate representation of fat people in health care organizational leadership.  

Physicians tend to rely on diagnostic criteria, including BMI, that can influence patients’ access to care, referrals, and insurance coverage for indicated interventions. 

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

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

Dr Joshua D. Safer joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, coauthored with Rebkah Tesfamariam: “How Should a Transgender Patient’s History of Deep Vein Thrombosis and Smoking Influence Gender-Affirming Health Decision Sharing?” 

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

Dr Whitney Riley Linsenmeyer joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Sarah Garwood: “Patient-Centered Approaches to Using BMI to Evaluate Gender-Affirming Surgery Eligibility.”

Dr Eric Plemons joins Ethics Talk to discuss facial feminization surgery and how clinicians can best support patient decisions about gender-affirming care.

Tension between realistic goals and unrealistic views about how to achieve them is compounded when patients are eager to revise a prior surgeon’s gender-affirming procedure.