UCLA Medical School had been condemned by a renowned Harvard doctor for forcing students to take a “fat positive” class.
All first-year medical students at UCLA are required to read an essay by Marquisele Mercedes, a self-proclaimed “fat liberationist” who claims that “fatphobia is the status quo of medicine” and that weight loss is an “endeavour.” desperate”.
Mercedes’ article, titled ‘No Health, No Care: The Great Loophole in the Hippocratic Oath,’ is on the required reading list for the required course Structural Racism and Health Equity.
The study program, obtained by the Washington Free Beaconshows what elite medical school students learn, which has drawn the attention of experts across the country who disagree with the course’s teachings.
Jeffrey Flier, former dean of Harvard Medical School and one of the world’s leading experts on obesity, sharply criticized the course, saying the curriculum “promotes extensive and dangerous misinformation.”
All first-year medical students at UCLA are required to read an essay by Marquisele Mercedes (pictured), a self-proclaimed “fat liberationist” who claims that “fatphobia is the status quo of medicine” and that fat loss weight is a “desperate effort.”
Jeffrey Flier (pictured), former dean of Harvard Medical School and one of the world’s leading obesity experts, sharply criticized the course, saying the curriculum “promotes extensive and dangerous misinformation.”
UCLA “has focused this required course on a socialist/Marxist ideology that is totally inappropriate,” Flier said. “As a long-time medical educator, I found this course really impactful.”
Mercedes’ essay details how weight has become “pathologized and medicalized in racialized terms.”
It offers guidance on “resisting the ingrained oppression of fat,” according to the course syllabus.
Mercedes claims that ‘ob*sity’ is a slur ‘used to inflict violence on fat people’, particularly ‘poor black, disabled, trans and fat people’.
“This is a profoundly misguided view of obesity, a complex medical disorder with significant adverse health consequences for all racial and ethnic groups,” Flier said, adding that teaching these “ignorant” ideas to medical students is a ” bad practice”.
She uses her social media account to further express her activism for “fat positivity.”
“It’s so fucking isolating to be a fat black disabled person working for individual and collective liberation,” she wrote in a instagram post – adding that being fat is a disability.
Mercedes has also led presentations on how “fighting fat shows up in the work you do,” which she says includes using “fear-inducing language to encourage healthy eating and physical activity.”
Mercedes also taught students at a public health seminar that “fat people are forced to fight fatness every day in all areas of life.”
Mercedes says that “making the decision to commit to health care for fat people often means making the decision to put yourself in harm’s way.”
She has also led presentations on how “anti-fat shows up in the work you do,” which she says includes using “fear language to encourage healthy eating and physical activity.”
Mercedes also taught students at a public health seminar that “fat people are forced to fight fatness every day in all areas of life.”
She says that “making the decision to get involved in health care for fat people often means making the decision to put yourself in harm’s way.”
DailyMail.com has contacted Mercedes for comment.
Mercedes is just one voice amid a wave of “fat-positivity.” Virginia Sole-Smith, a “fat activist,” has sparked controversy by saying that childhood obesity is not the problem, but anti-fat prejudice.
Mercedes (pictured) claims that ‘ob*sity’ is a slur ‘used to inflict violence on fat people’, particularly ‘poor black, disabled, trans and fat people’.
Virginia lets her children eat whatever they want, even against the wishes of her ex-husband, who caught her daughter eating a stick of butter.
She is the author of ‘Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture’ and an advocate for dismantling diet culture and anti-fat bias.
“We’re not parents about body size,” Sole-Smith said on the Pressure Cooker podcast. ‘How your child eats and how much he moves his 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.”
While Sole-Smith’s book is a New York Times bestseller and many turn to her for parenting advice, others believe she is promoting a dangerous lifestyle.
“It is not okay to be overweight, it is not okay to eat excess sugar and animal fats, it is not okay to eat junk food, it is not okay not to move your body, it is not okay to defend that being overweight is a good thing,” Caroline Hailstone. she said in one of Sole Smith’s Instagram posts.
Mercedes has also received her fair share of backlash, and Flier isn’t the only expert criticizing UCLA for including her ideas in the course curriculum.
Nicholas Christakis is a sociologist who has spent decades providing health care to underserved communities, including on Chicago’s South Side.
He has called the curriculum “absurd” and says the course is “embarrassing for UCLA.”
First-year UCLA medical students were also forced to attend a strange lecture given by a pro-Hamas activist that had them praying to ‘Mother Earth’ while a faculty member tried to identify a student who refused to attend. participate.
Lisa Gray-Garcia gave the two-hour presentation in Geffen Hall on the university’s downtown campus on March 27.
The lecture was a required part of the Structural Racism and Health Equity class taught by pediatrician Lindsay Wells.
UCLA’s curriculum showcases what students at the elite medical school are learning, which has drawn the attention of experts across the country who disagree with the course’s teachings.
UCLA is not the only university criticized for incorporating certain teachings into the curriculum for DEI purposes.
Stanford Medical School has sprinkled lessons on “microaggressions,” “structural racism,” and “privilege” into its teachings.
Yale School of Medicine students are required to complete an “Advocacy and Equity” sequence on “becoming physician advocates for health justice.”
Professors at Columbia Medical School are told they should refer to women as “people with uteruses” to promote a ‘Anti-bias and inclusive’ curriculum.