By Lisa Schaffer, Executive Director
On World Obesity Day, it can be tempting to lead with numbers.
But what I want to focus on isn’t statistics. It’s a familiar feeling that many people living with obesity can name instantly: walking into a room and bracing for what might happen next.
Maybe it’s the chair. Maybe it’s the comment. Maybe it’s the care you don’t receive.
Obesity is a chronic disease influenced by biology, genetics, and the world around us. And yet, people are still too often treated as though their body size is a personal failing, something they should be able to “fix” if they just tried hard enough. But willpower cannot change biology.
In everyday moments, weight bias shows up as “concern,” jokes, and assumptions at work, even when you’re doing what’s expected of you.
In healthcare settings, people are told to “come back after you lose weight.” Others have had symptoms dismissed, pain minimized, or treatments delayed until they “prove” they’ve tried hard enough. And some avoid care altogether because they’ve learned, through experience, that it can be stigmatizing and harmful.
Underneath it all is the same message, repeated in a hundred different ways: you are the problem here.
World Obesity Day is an opportunity and invitation to change that experience, not with slogans or shallow encouragement, but with honest conversation about what obesity is and what people deserve: evidence-based care, respect, and dignity in the places we live, work, learn, and belong.
Dignity is what changes the experience
When I say dignity, I’m not talking about an abstract concept. I’m talking about the basic conditions that make our society feel humane.
Dignity looks like being treated as a whole person, everywhere you go:
- Being listened to without assumptions replacing proper assessment
- Accessing care and evidence-based options without having to “earn it” through weight loss
- Respectful language, including person-first language and the absence of shaming jokes or side comments
- Workplaces and physical environments that are accessible for all bodies
- Policies that support people rather than penalize them for having a chronic disease
Dignity means a person living with obesity can walk into a clinic, a workplace, a school, or a public space and not have to brace for harm.
That is the standard—and it is achievable. We don’t have to accept the status quo. We have more evidence and more tools than we used to, and people should be feeling that progress.
Science has moved forward. Our systems need to catch up.
Today, we have strong evidence, clinical practice guidelines, and innovations advancing at remarkable speed.
And yet, too many Canadians still experience obesity care as inconsistent, inaccessible, or stigmatizing, shaped by where they live, what supports they can afford, and whether the systems around them are prepared to treat obesity as the chronic disease it is.
This gap between what we know and what people experience is exactly where Obesity Canada’s work lies. Policies are our values in writing. They show who gets supported, and who gets left behind. It’s where health education, physical environments, and access decisions either protect people or fail them.
A milestone worth marking: Alberta’s recognition, one year later
This year, World Obesity Day also lands alongside an important moment we can celebrate: the one-year anniversary of Alberta recognizing obesity as a chronic disease.
That recognition was a public signal that the province has a responsibility to respond with evidence-based care.
But recognition is the starting line, not the finish line. The real measure is what changes for people living with obesity in their day-to-day lives, not just on paper.
Where Obesity Canada is focused
Our strategic direction is about making sure the lived experience of obesity in Canada changes, along with the conversation around it. Our work sits where science meets humanity, to change how Canada sees, supports, and understands people affected by obesity.
That means pushing for better access to evidence-based care across Canada, reducing weight bias in healthcare and beyond, equipping healthcare professionals with practical tools, advancing policy that treats obesity as a chronic disease, and ensuring lived experience shapes solutions.
We want a Canada where people living with obesity are supported early, treated fairly and consistently, and never shamed for needing support and care.
What you can do today (and everyday)
World Obesity Day isn’t only a moment to learn. It’s a moment to act in small, concrete ways that add up.
If you’re a person living with obesity: you deserve care for your chronic disease. You deserve to be listened to and supported without judgment.
If you’re a healthcare professional, policymaker, researcher, employer, or ally, consider starting here:
- Look at your environment: are your spaces physically welcoming for people of all body sizes?
- Look at your default assumptions: do you lead with empathy and curiosity, or conclusions?
- Look at access: are people being supported early?
- Speak up when weight bias shows up as humour, policy, “common sense,” or standard practice.
Dignity is built through choices: design choices, language choices, clinical choices, policy choices. The kind that tells someone, clearly: you belong here.
That’s the work. And that’s the story we’re here to change.
