1. Overview

From health class to doctors offices to advertisements for weight loss programs and drugs, we are told in the US explicitly and implicitly that weight and health are related. The assumption is that higher weight causes poorer health. The implication is that there is scientific evidence for this assumption. But what is the science behind the weight-centric health paradigm? As we delve into this question, we'll find that the history of weight science is deeply connected with racial sciences of the 19th and 20th centuries. Not only do the currently dominant ideas about weight and health not hold true, we will discuss here the dangers of these ideas, from causing negative health outcomes up to and including death due to medical neglect and poor medical treatment in higher weight people, to increasing eating disorders for people in all weight groupings, to obscuring medical racism, misogyny, transphobia, and ableism by blaming health outcomes on higher weight. While we will point out that weight cycling is often associated with negative health outcomes, it is important to note that having a health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and others associated with higher-weight, weight stigma, and weight cycling is not sign of failure nor is it an indicator of any human beings' worth. Regardless of health status, everyone deserves access to affirming and supportive care. Even with such care chronic conditions will still exist.