A Shared Vision for Reducing Fat Shame and Blame in Reproductive Care

Abstract

This is a response to four commentaries on our article titled “Fat Shame and Blame in Reproductive Care: Implications for Ethical Health Care Interactions” (Ward & McPhail, 2019). We agree that Zielinski (2019), Fahs (2019), McHugh (2019), and Sojka and Sanchez (2019) all effectively addressed the issue of fat stigma in reproductive health care raised in our article and expanded and extended this vital discussion. We agree that fat stigma is felt by patients in all facets of care, and we acknowledge the need for immediate action both in education and health practice, including mental health. We also agree that in order to truly achieve reproductive justice in health care, we all must adopt an intersectional, health-centered approach to care that uses an expanded definition of reproductive health care that is inclusive of all people.

Keywords:

• Shame
• body weight
• mental health
• reproductive health care
• intersectionality

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.