Send us a text Taylor was diagnosed with sleep apnea six months ago and told the only real solution was weight loss. Like so many fat people, they've tried every diet imaginable—keto, Weight Watchers, calorie counting—and watched their weight cycle up and down for years. When a friend introduced them to intuitive eating and the anti-diet movement, it felt revolutionary. But the what-ifs started creeping in. What if I just keep eating and never stop? What if this damages my health? What if eve...

Send us a text We've been told our entire lives that losing weight will prevent health problems. But where did this belief come from? In this episode, I trace the shocking history of how insurance companies, pharmaceutical funding, and arbitrary statistical cut-offs created the mythical illness we now know as "ob*sity" crisis. From Quetelet's obsession with the "average man" to the International Ob*sity Task Force's pharmaceutical funding, I expose how we've been working off logical fal...

Send us a text In a healthcare system that routinely dismisses, blames, and denies treatment to fat patients, it's easy to doubt whether choosing to stay fat is the right decision. But here's the truth: you deserve a doctor who listens, believes, and validates you—regardless of your size. You have the absolute right to refuse to be weighed, to refuse weight loss, and to demand treatment without prerequisites. The ethics are clear, even when the reality feels impossible. This episode is your r...

Send us a text Casey is a passionate, well-meaning therapist who believes in weight-inclusive care but freezes when clients bring up medical concerns. They've learned about anti-diet principles through Instagram and podcasts, but lack the medical knowledge to counter doctors' weight-focused advice. When a client receives a devastating diabetes diagnosis with the usual "lose weight" lecture, Casey wants to help but secretly wonders if the doctor might be right. Add in family pressure abo...

Send us a text Weight loss doesn't improve your health—and I'm tired of having to prove it. While doctors continue pushing weight loss as a cure-all, the evidence tells a different story. The Look AHEAD Study followed 5,000 diabetics for 10 years and found that weight loss didn't prevent heart attacks or strokes. Similar studies show no long-term benefits for diabetes, arthritis, blood pressure, or fatty liver disease. Yet fat patients are still forced to advocate for basic medical care while...

Send us a text Some healthcare professionals are nice. Some would go so far as to call themselves “body positive" or “HAES aligned”. But being pleasant doesn't make you safe for fat patients. There's a crucial difference between practitioners who are steadfastly kind while perpetuating harm, and those who actively work to counter medical weight bias. In this episode, I expose why often times anti-diet isn't enough, how well-meaning professionals can cause more damage than obvious bigots, and ...

Send us a text Jordan's seven GP visits for debilitating period pain, fatigue, and pelvic symptoms should have led to an endometriosis diagnosis within the first appointment. Instead, every symptom was blamed on weight, leaving them dismissed, traumatized, and untreated. In this episode, I expose how medical fatphobia intersects with misogyny to deny fat people proper gynecological care, and why being fat makes you fundamentally unsafe with most doctors. Through Jordan's story, I reveal the d...

Send us a text Society has conditioned us to believe that our weight reveals everything about our character, intelligence, willpower, and worth as human beings. From childhood, we're taught that fat bodies represent moral failure, laziness, and unworthiness of love or respect. In this raw and powerful episode, I dismantle the extensive list of harmful stereotypes we've internalized about ourselves and call out healthcare professionals who perpetuate discrimination. I explore how these beliefs...

Send us a text Medical autonomy is supposedly a fundamental pillar of healthcare - the right to make informed decisions about your own body without coercion. But as I discovered in a conversation with my husband Junior, a fat dentist, this principle simply doesn't apply when you're fat. In this episode, I expose how the medical profession systematically denies autonomy to fat patients, exploring the difference between theoretical rights and practical agency, and why doctors can get away with ...

Send us a text Riley's doctor recommended bariatric surgery as the solution to their health concerns, but when Riley came to me for advice, I realized they hadn't been told about the real risks. From anastomosis leaks with 15% mortality rates to spontaneous bowel perforations years later, the complications of weight loss surgery extend far beyond what most patients are counseled about. In this episode, I walk through the evidence-based risks that every patient deserves to know before ma...

Send us a text Health and weight are two completely separate things that we've been taught to view as synonymous. While society insists that being fat is inherently unhealthy, the evidence tells a different story. In this episode, I break down why genetics, not lifestyle choices, primarily determine our weight, how weight stigma actually causes poor health outcomes, and why fat people often have better medical outcomes than thin people. I challenge the fundamental assumption that body s...

Send us a text During my supposed break, I wrote a 45-page booklet called "Jenny Needs a New Knee, But She's Too Fat to Get One"—complete with 29 clinical references proving that denying joint replacements based on weight is medically unjustified and harmful. Coz that's what people do during their time off, right? Instead of moving on to the next project like I always do, I'm trying something different and terrifying: staying put. In this vulnerable episode, I explore my lifelong pattern of p...

Send us a text A third of NHS areas are denying hip and knee replacements based on BMI alone—not for medical reasons, but purely to save money. In this episode, I expose how the medical establishment openly admits these discriminatory policies lack evidence while pushing profitable weight loss interventions instead. Meanwhile, actual surgeons and researchers confirm what we've known all along: this is financial discrimination masquerading as healthcare. Have you been denied a knee...

Send us a text Coming out as fat is harder than coming out as transgender, at least in our experience. When performer and cabaret artist Ross Anderson-Doherty refused to pursue weight loss as medical treatment, their healthcare became a weapon of punishment rather than care. In this raw conversation, we explore how medical fatphobia intersects with transphobia, classism, and ableism to create devastating trauma that nearly destroyed one person's will to live. Ross's journey from medical negle...

Send us a text Medical weight stigma creates dangerous catch-22 situations for patients seeking care. In this episode, I share Cameron's story of developing gallstones after weight loss surgery, only to be denied treatment because their BMI was "still too high." In this episode, I expose how rapid weight loss can trigger gallstone formation and how medical professionals often ignore evidence-based care when treating higher weight patients. I challenge the "lose weight to get treatment" ...

Send us a text The obsession with calculating the "cost of ob*sity" to society reflects our troubling tendency to commodify human life and health. In this rather ragey and explosive episode, I expose how a widely-cited figure of £98 billion was manufactured by pharmaceutical interests to sell weight loss drugs. I challenge the notion that we "owe" society a debt of health and explore how weight stigma, not weight itself, drives depression and poor health outcomes. Through a rather provo...

Send us a text Medical trauma is more than an abstract concept—it's a physical reality that impacts millions of people daily. In this episode, I share my transformative experience at a gender identity clinic, contrasting it with previous healthcare encounters that left me hypervigilant, tense, and bracing for judgment. I explore how our bodies physically store medical trauma—in our gut, our muscles, our posture, and even our skin—creating patterns that repeat with each new medical...

Send us a text In this episode of The Fat Doctor Podcast, I'm joined by Elle Bower Johnston, a breathworker, rest teacher, and somatic trauma resolution practitioner who describes herself as a "body witch." Our conversation explores the intersection of trauma, embodiment, and healing beyond traditional therapy. Elle explains trauma as "when our body-mind experiences something that it can't digest in the moment - either too much too fast, or not enough over too long." While our protectiv...

Send us a text In this episode, I explore the journey of Robin, a 45-year-old art teacher navigating a high cholesterol diagnosis and the frustrating world of weight-centric healthcare. Through their story, I break down the actual science of heart disease risk factors (spoiler: weight is the least of your concerns), explain the difference between primary and secondary prevention, and reveal how the medical establishment's obsession with numbers obscures more important social determinants of h...

Send us a text Our worth as human beings is not determined by our health status. In this powerful episode, I challenge the pervasive narrative that ties personal value to health metrics and physical ability. I explore how healthism is deeply rooted in capitalism, racism, ableism, and colonialism, creating harmful hierarchies even within marginalized communities. Drawing from my own personal experience with chronic illness and analyzing problematic media representations of 'fat but fit' bodies...