Research

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Experiencing weight bias in primary healthcare negatively influences patient engagement and utilization of health services, leading to avoidance or delay of care.

If you have obesity, you may face weight bias in healthcare, which can lead you to avoid or delay seeking care. This is a common and documented barrier. To overcome this, seek providers who focus on health behaviors rather than just weight, and remember that avoiding care due to fear of judgment can worsen health outcomes.

ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
Overall, our scoping review reveals how perceptions and/or experiences of weight bias from primary care health professionals negatively influence patient engagement with primary health care services.
Angela S. Alberga et al. · Primary Health Care Research & Development · 2019

Why this rating

This is a scoping review of 21 studies, providing a broad overview but not a quantitative synthesis or high-quality RCTs.

Source

Weight bias and health care utilization: a scoping review

Angela S. Alberga et al. · Primary Health Care Research & Development · 2019

DOI 10.1017/s1463423619000227

narrative_reviewCited 336×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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