Obesity Empowerment Network UK is a non-profit, user led, advocacy organisation, dedicated to empowering people affected by obesity by giving them a public voice.
Our mission is to improve access to healthcare for individuals with obesity, to increase awareness that obesity is a chronic serious medical condition, to advocate for a nationwide obesity prevention and treatment strategies and fight to eliminate weight-bias and discrimination.
What is obesity and how is it treated?
“Obesity is a real medical condition that can be effectively treated. Very few people understand what that means. This video is my humble and simplified effort to help individuals and healthcare practitioners understand what Obesity is and how it is treated.”
Dr David Macklin MD
DR DAVID MACKLIN IS DIRECTOR OF MEDCAN WEIGHT MANAGEMENT PROGRAM AND WEIGHT MANAGEMENT AT MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL BMI CLINIC. HE IS ALSO LECTURER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO FACULTY OF MEDICINE.
OEN UK’s Stand up to weight stigma campaign
Individuals with overweight and obesity face pervasive stigmatisation, social devaluation, and discrimination because of their body size in many different societal domains in the UK including healthcare, employment, education, family life and the media.
OEN UK has launched the ‘Stand Up to Weight Stigma’ campaign to highlight the nature and extent of this discrimination in various different settings and bring change. The campaign seeks to engage and collaborate with a broad group of stakeholders, including people living with obesity, healthcare professionals, researchers, the media, employers, policymakers and the general public.
The campaign aims to:
- Raise awareness of the prevalence of weight stigma.
- Inform about the causes and harms of obesity stigma.
- Explain the myths and misconceptions that reinforce weight bias.
- Propose a novel narrative about obesity, coherent with scientific evidence and respectful to the rights of individuals afflicted with this disease.
To follow the campaign and bring change:
- Read the campaign posts: ‘Stand Up to Weight Stigma‘, ‘Weight Stigma in Employment‘, ‘Weight Stigma at Work: Moving from analysis to action‘, ‘Weight Stigma in the media‘, ‘Thin = happy + successful: the impact of stigmatising media content on people living with obesity‘ and ‘Framing obesity, ending stigma: The change we need to see in the media‘.
- Follow the hashtags #StandUpToWeightStigma and #SUTWS on Twitter and Facebook.
World Obesity Day 2024
OEN will host Ann Vincent’s story on living with obesity and PCOS followed by a roundtable discussion with experts Professor Alexander Miras, Professor Tom Barber and Professor Bassel Wattar.
Obesity Empowerment Network 