Julia Belluz
speaker
540 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Feb 2026
last heard 8 May
Julia Belluz’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
One of the underlying assumptions of the health at every size or fat activism or body positivity movements was that you can't control your body size, therefore you must accept it.
We had surgery before, it wasn't as accessible or scalable, but now we do have this medication where people do have the option, right?
and the ones who can afford it and access it and all of that.
We've seen influential people in the body positivity, fat activism movement come forward and really grapple with starting on these drugs and losing weight on them.
And one thing that those movements did that was really important
was highlight how much shame and stigma people who are living with obesity face every day, especially women.
So there was this great Economist article a few years ago where they parsed the data on the pay penalty, and they did such a great job of highlighting the discrimination and stigma that people with obesity face.
But I think there was really a dangerous glossing over of the health effects of carrying extra weight.
That even if there is this variation in individuals at the population level, it's very clear that the higher you go up the BMI ladder, the more health risks you're carrying.
I've spoken to people who are part of these movements.
They had issues with movement.
They had problems with their blood sugar.
They were concerned about fertility and they were so grateful to be able to now have a medication that could help with those issues.
That debate became very polarized.
It was either you're fat accepting or fat phobic.
And I think we're kind of moving to something maybe in between.
Oh, absolutely.
No, I think about this a lot with kids.
There's basically this market that hasn't been tapped to the extent that the adults have, which is children with obesity and diet-caused diseases.
And I think it's something like 1% of children who are eligible are taking these drugs now.
Showing 121–140 of 540 · page 7 of 27
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