Women who have quickly lost weight say strangers are now more likely to smile at them or strike up a conversation.

The Irish singer says she has experienced a "difficult" few days after performing at the music festival.

The dramatic results of weight-loss drugs often come with a side order of stigma, as though it’s ‘cheating’ not to stick to willpower, diet and exercise alone. Is that why so many are telling no one –...

Weight stigma negatively impacts people with higher weights across the lifespan as well as social contexts and can lead to weight discrimination. As weight is not a protected identity in Canadian human rights legislation, it is important to better understand how weight discrimination is being argued in Canada’s legal system. The purpose of this environmental scan was to examine and describe Canadian case law and scholarly articles pertaining to the argumentation of weight discrimination in Canada. A three-step search process was taken to identify relevant cases and articles that included; (1) Boolean keyword searches in HeinOnline, WestLaw, and LexisPlus; (2) citation searching within all results that met inclusion criteria; and (3) a keyword search in CanLII. These searches yielded a total of 33 documents that were included for analysis, including 8 scholarly articles and 25 cases. Scholarly articles highlighted consistent criticisms of existing human rights protections for higher-weight people in Canada, mostly pertaining to Limitations of disability protections. Of the 25 cases included, 16 were unsuccessful and 9 were successful, with most cases related to employment (n = 19). Our findings point to significant gaps in Canada’s legal system for identifying and correcting instances of weight discrimination. Current Canadian disability protections are inadequate for those who experience weight discrimination, especially those who do not experience disability due to their weight. Our results highlight that weight ought to be a bona fide human rights issue, independent from disability protections.

Little research has investigated whether people's experiences with weight-related discrimination serve as a barrier to cancer screening. This study ex…

A growing body of research has found weight stigma to independently drive both morbidity and mortality, regardless of actual weight. This has, however, yet to translate into medical education and prac...