Meet UCLA medical school ‘fat pride’ staffer with a compulsory class

Fat-positivity

A distinguished Harvard physician criticized UCLA medical school for mandating students to participate in a course promoting ‘fat-positivity’.

Marquisele Mercedes

Every first-year medical student at UCLA must read an essay by Marquisele Mercedes, who identifies as a ‘fat liberationist’.

Fatphobia

In the essay, Mercedes asserts that ‘fatphobia is medicine’s status quo’ and argues that attempting weight loss is a ‘hopeless endeavor.’

Mercedes’s article

Mercedes’s article, titled ‘No Health, No Care: The Big Fat Loophole in the Hippocratic Oath.’

Essential

This book is a part of the essential reading material for the compulsory course on Structural Racism and Health Equity.

Prestigious

The syllabus, acquired by the Washington Free Beacon, reveals the curriculum being taught to students at the prestigious medical school. This has drawn interest from experts across the country who hold differing views on the course content.

Obesity

Jeffrey Flier, the ex-dean of Harvard Medical School and a leading authority on obesity, criticized the course and expressed his disapproval of the curriculum saying it ‘promotes extensive and dangerous misinformation.’

Inappropriate

UCLA ‘has centered this required course on a socialist/Marxist ideology that is totally inappropriate,’ said Flier. ‘As a longstanding medical educator, I found this course truly shocking.’

Societal perceptions

In her essay, Mercedes elaborates on the societal perceptions and attitudes towards weight to be ‘pathologized and medicalized in racialized terms.’

Resisting

According to the course outline, she provides advice on ‘resisting entrenched fat oppression,’

Slur

Mercedes claims that ‘ob*sity’ is a slur ‘used to exact violence on fat people’ – particularly ‘Black, disabled, trans, poor fat people.’

Misguided

‘This is a profoundly misguided view of obesity, a complex medical disorder with major adverse health consequences for all racial and ethnic groups,’ Flier said – adding that teaching these ‘ignorant’ ideas to medical students is ‘malpractice’.

Social media

She utilizes her social media platform to advocate further for ‘fat-positivity’ and activism.

Disability

‘It’s so f***ing isolating to be a disabled Black fat person working towards individual and collective liberation,’ she wrote in an Instagram post – adding that being fat is a disability.

Anti-fatness

She has conducted workshops and talks on the topic of ‘anti-fatness show up in the work you do’ – which she says includes using ‘fear-mongering language in order to encourage healthy eating and physical activity.’

Forced

Mercedes also instructed students in a public health workshop, where she discussed that ‘fat people are forced to contend with anti-fatness every day in every domain across the lifespan.’

Healthcare

She says that ‘making the decision to engage with healthcare for fat people often means making the decision to likely put yourself in harm’s way.’

Growing movement

DailyMail.com has contacted Mercedes to provide a statement or response. Mercedes is a single advocate in the growing movement of ‘fat-positivity’.

Prejudice

Virginia Sole-Smith, a proponent ‘fat activist,’ has stirred debate by stating that the issue lies more in anti-fat prejudice than childhood obesity.

Violence

Mercedes (pictured) claims that ‘ob*sity’ is a slur ‘used to exact violence on fat people’ – particularly ‘Black, disabled, trans, poor fat people’

Disregarding

Virginia allows her children to consume any food they desire, even disregarding the concerns of her ex-husband who once found their daughter eating a stick of butter.

Parenting

She is the author of ‘Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture’ and a supporter of breaking down diet culture and combatting anti-fat discrimination.

Controlling

‘We don’t parent body size,’ Sole-Smith said on the Pressure Cooker podcast. ‘How your child is eating and how much they move their body is really the smallest piece of the puzzle. When you focus on that with the goal of controlling your child’s weight, you do a lot of harm.’

Bestseller

Although Sole-Smith’s book is a bestseller in The New York Times and she is sought after for parenting guidance, some argue that she is endorsing a risky way of living.

Overweight

‘It’s not OK to be overweight, it’s not OK to eat excess sugar and animal fats, it’s not OK to eat junk food, it’s not OK to not move your body, it’s not OK to advocate being overweight is all good,’ Caroline Hailstone commented on a post by Sole-Smith on Instagram.

Criticism

Mercedes has faced criticism, with Flier being just one of the many experts who have criticized UCLA for incorporating her concepts into the course material. Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist with extensive experience in offering healthcare to marginalized communities, including the South Side of Chicago, has also voiced his disapproval.

Embarrassing

He has described the course content as ‘nonsensical’ and says that the course is ’embarrassing to UCLA.’

Lecture

During a session at Geffen Hall on UCLA’s downtown campus, first-year medical students were compelled to attend a peculiar lecture by a pro-Hamas advocate, Lisa Gray-Garcia. In the lecture, students were asked to pray to ‘mama Earth,’ while a faculty member tried to pinpoint the student who refused to participate.

Scrutiny

The presentation, which lasted two hours, was part of the mandatory Structural Racism and Health Equity class led by pediatrician Lindsay Wells. UCLA is not the sole university facing scrutiny for integrating specific teachings into the curriculum for the sake of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).

Microaggressions

Stanford Medical School has integrated teachings on ‘microaggressions,’ ‘structural racism,’ and ‘privilege’ into their curriculum.

Health justice

Yale Medical School students must fulfill a ‘Advocacy and Equity’ sequence on ‘becoming physician advocates for health justice’.

Columbia Medical School

Faculty at Columbia Medical School are advised to use the term ‘people with uteruses’ when referring to women to support an ‘anti-bias and inclusive’ curriculum.