Since 2021, the Obesity Action Coalition (OAC) has led a national public awareness campaign against weight bias with a goal of ending the stigma that people with obesity face throughout their lives in healthcare, employment, education, media coverage and beyond.
The latest installment of the “Stop Weight Bias” campaign has brought aboard Eli Lilly, maker of blockbuster obesity drug Zepbound. The Big Pharma partnered with the OAC to produce a set of images deemed to be more accurate and respectful in their portrayals of people with obesity than other images often used to represent the condition in the media and healthcare settings.
As the OAC noted in the collection’s launch announcement Friday, those other images often cast people with obesity in a comedic, dehumanizing or disparaging light that may imply that the condition is “a personal failing rather than a complex and chronic disease.”
The bias-free image gallery is set to make its formal debut at the HLTH Conference in Las Vegas next week. In the meantime, the collection is already available for perusal and use by the media, researchers, healthcare professionals, nonprofit organizations and anyone else seeking out less stigmatizing portrayals of people with obesity.
The gallery includes both static photos and videos available for use free of charge. They’re separated into categories including “business professional,” “exercise,” “family” and “food,” to name a few, and all aim to show a diverse group of people with obesity going about their daily lives with dignity and authenticity.
“Weight stigma can have significant mental, physical and emotional impacts on those affected, often discouraging individuals from seeking healthcare,” James Zervios, COO of the OAC, said in the announcement. “The Stop Weight Bias Image Gallery is reshaping public perceptions of obesity and setting a new standard for accurate, respectful media coverage.”
As sales of Lilly’s GLP-1 medications have continued to skyrocket, the company has made a point of showing its support for people living with obesity. Multiple ads released earlier this year took aim at those who use the medications for cosmetic weight-loss purposes, rather than as a serious medical treatment.
Meanwhile, another commercial that the company debuted in March specifically targeted weight bias. The minute-long ad, titled “Shame,” features a woman with obesity sharing her experiences with the pervasive stigma linked to obesity. She describes the shame caused by that bias as a “shadow” that’s loomed over her whole life, “living in glances of people I loved and ones I didn’t even know, always reminding me of my body’s supposed value.”
“But what good is shame when it comes to health?” she muses as the shadows disappear and the clip’s images become more joyful, concluding with the onscreen message: “Obesity is a matter of health. Shame has no place in it.”