Today Virginia is chatting with Mara Gordon, MD.

Dr. Gordon is a family physician on the faculty of Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, as well as a writer, journalist, and contributor to NPR. Dr. Gordon also writes Chief Complaint, about her efforts to make medicine more fat friendly, and help her patients and herself explore body liberation and radical bodily autonomy.

In our conversation today, Dr. Gordon and I get into why the healthcare system is set up the way it is, and what we can do to advocate for more weight-inclusive care—even when we’re not seeing weight-inclusive doctors.

She also answers your questions about common weight-linked health conditions like acid reflux, sleep apnea, and prediabetes.

To tell us YOUR thoughts, and to get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.

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Disclaimer: You’re listening to this episode because you value my input as a journalist who reports on these issues and therefore has a lot of informed opinions. Neither my guest today nor I are healthcare providers, and this conversation is not meant to substitute for medical or therapeutic advice.

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CREDITS

The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Follow Virginia on Instagram, Follow Corinne  @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing and subscribe to Big Undies.

The Burnt Toast logo is by Farideh.

Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism. 
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You’re listening to Burnt Toast!

I’m Virginia Sole-Smith, and today my guest is Mara Gordon, MD.

Dr. Gordon is a family physician on the faculty of Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, as well as a writer, journalist, and contributor to NPR. Dr. Gordon also writes

Chief Complaint

, about her efforts to make medicine more fat friendly, and help her patients and herself explore body liberation and radical bodily autonomy.

In our conversation today, Dr. Gordon and I get into why the healthcare system is set up the way it is, and what we can do to advocate for more weight-inclusive care—even when we’re not seeing weight-inclusive doctors.

She also answers your questions about common weight-linked health conditions like acid reflux, sleep apnea, and prediabetes.

PS. If you enjoy today’s conversation, please tap the heart on this post — likes are one of the biggest drivers of traffic from Substack’s Notes, so that’s a super easy, free way to support the show!

Episode 167 Transcript

Mara

I am a family doctor in practice in Camden, New Jersey. That means I take care of both adults and kids and I practice what I like to call size inclusive medicine. I’m also a writer—and I’ve written a fair amount about my interest in making healthcare more fat friendly. And I’m an advocate for making healthcare a more size inclusive space.

Virginia

You are also part of a new organization that was just launched, Association for Weight and Size Inclusive Medicine, which, as soon as you told me about it, I was like, thank God, this finally exists. 

Mara

We are so pumped. This organization is called the Association for Weight and Size Inclusive Medicine or AWSIM (pronounced “awesome!”) for short.

Virginia

Oh, just got the acronym!

Mara

You can find us at weightinclusivemedicine.org. Basically we’re a group of physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants who are committed to size inclusive medicine and committed to making healthcare more welcoming place for people who live in bigger bodies. 

The need for this is just so obvious. Healthcare spaces are ground zero for fatphobia.

I think they’re often a lot of people’s origin stories for fat phobia, too, which really disturbs me. Like, “my years of body dysmorphia started with an offhand comment from the pediatrician when I was a kid.” Over and over again, I hear these stories, and it is awful. We need to do better. 

So AWSIM began as a group of of us who found each other organically online. We’re all over the country, all over the world. Actually, we have some folks in Canada, in South and Central America, but I would say that we’re North America focused for now. We’re trying to build a movement, a professional home for doctors and other healthcare providers who are interested in fighting against fat stigma and making our offices more welcoming spaces.

Virginia

This is so great because one of the questions I’m asked most often is: How do I find a weight inclusive doctor? And there just hasn’t been a place to point people, like an easy answer. And of course, you guys are a new organization. I’m not saying you’re going to solve it for everybody all over the country this minute, but the fact that you are working towards this is really, really thrilling. 

Mara

Right now we’re in our really early stages. I’m actually learning so much from our medical student allies. In particular, Medical Students for Size Inclusivity is a grassroots organization that now has chapters all over the country working to start conversations about size inclusivity at the medical school level.

I’m a medical educator. I teach medical students. I love working with them, and MSSI has just done such an amazing job of finding networks, connecting with networks. It’s really community organizing in a digital age, right? They are bringing together a movement of students saying, “Hey professors, you’re doing a terrible job at this. We want better for our education. We want better for our future patients.”

We have a lot of MSSI members in AWSIM, which we hope will be their professional home once they become practicing physicians. I gotta give them credit. They’re just leading the way, and I’m learning so much from them. 

Virginia

The reader letters that give me the most hope are the ones from medical students. Because I’m just like, okay, if you get it now you’re going to go into healthcare, and there’s going to be more of you guys doing it that way. That’s so encouraging.

Mara

It’s awesome. And I think eventually, our goal is to one day have a directory of healthca