Dr. Sarah Nutter is a weight stigma researcher and an influential voice in the body positivity movement. With personal experience battling weight stigma and body dissatisfaction, Sarah has dedicated her career to understanding and combating the harmful effects of diet culture. Her groundbreaking work at the University of Victoria has shed light on the detrimental impact of media messages, societal beauty ideals, and weight loss efforts on individuals' mental and physical well-being. Sarah advocates for challenging societal norms, promoting positive body image, and redefining health beyond weight. Her expertise and innovative approaches continue to inspire and empower individuals to embrace self-love, reject harmful beauty standards, and cultivate a healthier relationship with their bodies.

This week on Disarming Data, Sarah dives into the impact of beauty and body ideal messages on body image and emphasizes the importance of valuing qualities beyond appearance and finding comfort in our bodies. She discusses the harmful effects of social media and TV shows like “The Biggest Loser” and their contribution to the development of eating disorders. Sarah also raises concerns about the improper use of weight loss drugs and the potential risks they pose to people’s long-term physical and mental health.

“I'm interested in better understanding the influence of weight stigma on healthcare and the attitudes of healthcare professionals." - Dr. Sarah Nutter

"A cultural obsession with weight has been long-standing and has also grown over time." - Dr. Sarah Nutter

"95% of people who lose weight via diet and exercise behaviors will gain that weight back in three to five years, and often they'll gain more weight back than they lost...sometimes we're actually really having a negative effect on our physiology." - Dr. Sarah Nutter

This week on Disarming Data:

• Sarah discusses the long-standing struggle of researchers to address the influence of weight loss messages on individuals' perception of themselves
• Understanding social media algorithms and why we should be more selective about the accounts we follow, and unfollowing those that promote weight stigmatization
• How we can be discerning consumers of media, and the importance of questioning the influences we look up to
• How we can stop obsessing about how our bodies look to others and learn to value other qualities we love about ourselves
• Ways we can find comfort, strength, and capability in their bodies.
• Sarah shares the need for intentional efforts to counteract the influence of culture on body image, particularly the cultural obsession with weight and thinness as a beauty ideal and marker of success.
• Sarah shares her research on how watching "The Biggest Loser" TV show contributes to unrealistic and unsafe weight loss efforts
• Whether what we see in the media contributes to the development of eating disorders and unhealthy body relationships
• How Sarah moved past a cycle of weight loss and gain, and how she managed to take the decision to reject dieting and learn to love herself
• The importance of allowing children to develop their own sense of hunger and fullness cues and fostering positive relationships with their bodies and food
• Why using weight loss drugs can be a long-term risk to your physical and mental health
• How we can stop using weight as an indicator of health and the problem of relying too heavily on BMI to assess healthiness

Connect with Dr. Sarah Nutter:

• Dr. Sarah

Connect with Disarming Data:

• David Biderman on LinkedIn