Breaking Academic Silos: Pedagogical Recommendations for Equitable Obesity Prevention Training and Research During an Age of Nutrition Polarization

Abstract

Weight stigma and weight-neutral medicine are popular topics in social media, often at odds with current medical guidelines on obesity. This conflict may impede research progress on preventing obesity in vulnerable groups. We held a series of student-led dialogue sessions from March to May 2023 with nutrition graduate students in Boston, MA, to understand barriers to diversifying the nutrition and public health fields and to contribute to actionable solutions to move forward equitably. Here, we summarize our lessons learned and provide pedagogical recommendations for jointly addressing obesity at the population level and the recruitment, training, and retention of diverse scholars, clinicians, and public health practitioners. We identified concrete opportunities for urgently needed new research in population-level obesity prevention emphasizing antiracism, harm reduction, and elimination of stigma and bias.