Fat shaming images are not evidence-based or ethical
It’s 2025, and I’m still seeing “experts” and “advocates” for healthy eating and obesity prevention using images that ridicule or stigmatise larger bodies.
This is not a trivial or inconsequential design choice, it signals a fundamental misunderstanding of both evidence-based health practice and ethical communication. True advocates and experts should refuse to employ fat-shaming visuals but just because it's the right thing to do to respect all bodies, but because they are more likely to positively impact behaviour change.
1. They contradict the science of weight and health. High-quality research consistently shows that health is multifactorial: genetics, social determinants, environment, stress, sleep, and access to care all exert powerful influences. Weight alone is a crude proxy. Stigmatising imagery implies that body size results purely from individual failings and can be fixed through willpower—ideas long debunked by metabolic, behavioural, and epidemiological studies. Experts who genuinely follow the evidence cannot, in good faith, pair their messages with cartoons of people eating burgers while sitting on the couch, or photos of faceless torsos squeezing into too-small jeans. These images reduce complex biology to a punchline.
2. They cause measurable harm. Weight stigma is not just offensive and mean; it predicts poorer mental health, elevated cortisol, disordered eating, delayed preventive‐care visits, and higher all-cause mortality, independent of BMI. When an audience encounters a shaming image—like an overweight person struggling to walk with junk food in hand, or a side-by-side “before and after” that glorifies thinness, rather than health, as success. This shaming raises stress hormones and lowers self-efficacy, the very opposite of what health communication is meant to accomplish. Professionals have a duty of non-maleficence: do no harm. Using visuals that we know worsen health outcomes breaches that duty.
3. They sabotage behaviour change. Public health interventions only work if they support and empower. Shame strips people this potential. It tells individuals they are outsiders who must conform to an imposed ideal before they are worthy of respect. For example, using a stock photo of a fat person being laughed at by thinner peers or trying and failing to zip up clothing doesn’t motivate change—it erodes hope. Research shows that people who feel judged for their weight are less likely to exercise, more likely to avoid medical care, and more prone to disordered eating. Effective advocates foster intrinsic motivation; fat-shaming images shut it down.
4. They erode professional credibility and trust. 'Thin professional, fat patient' highlights the power dynamic and the stereotype of health being a look, making it clear who is valued and who is judged. Inclusive imagery, by contrast, communicates rigour, empathy, and relevance to diverse populations, qualities associated with trusted messengers. For organisations, the reputational risk of alienating stakeholders, partners, or funders far outweighs the fleeting click-bait gains.
5. They reinforce structural discrimination. Fat-shaming visuals are not created in a vacuum; they belong to a long history of pathologising certain bodies while privileging others. This intersects with racism, ableism, and classism, because weight stigma disproportionately affects women, people of colour, and people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. True advocacy recognises that health equity requires dismantling, not reinforcing, these overlapping prejudices. Choosing respectful, diverse images is one small but concrete way to advance social justice.
True experts and real advocates know that every image used in communication teaches audiences how to think and feel about a topic. Fat-shaming visuals teach harm. Respectful ones teach dignity, science, and care. Do better.
