Nour, congratulations on receiving the ECO2026 Prize for Advocacy, Impact & Innovation. Tell us a little about yourself, please!
Thank you so much. I am truly honoured to receive this prize!
My name is Nour Baratli. I am a junior dietitian from Tunisia and a graduate of Université Centrale de Tunis. I am a passionate EASO ECN member since September 2024, and since then I have had the opportunity to learn from inspiring researchers, expand my professional network and further develop my passion for obesity research.
After completing my bachelor’s degree, I had the opportunity to join the Luxembourg Institute of Health as a research trainee, where I worked on a scoping review exploring the association between weight bias, stigma, and physical health outcomes in adults living with obesity. It was a privilege to work alongside an outstanding team of researchers: Dr Hanen Samouda, Dr Vladyslav Shapoval, Dr Wafa Troudi, Dr Torsten Bohn, Dr Catherine Bégin and Dr Ximena Ramos Salas.
Your ECO abstract, “A Scoping Review on Physical Health Issues Associated with Weight Bias and Stigma in Adults living with Obesity: Preliminary Results”, examines an important and often overlooked area. Why did this feel like a necessary topic to investigate?
People living with obesity continue to experience stigma across many areas of society. Although weight bias and stigma have been widely studied in relation to psychological health, their association with physical health outcomes remains less explored in the literature.
Understanding this relationship is important because existing studies suggest that weight stigma may influence health through several interconnected pathways, including biological stress responses, healthcare engagement and health-promotion behaviours that may contribute to the progression of the disease.
By mapping the available evidence, our scoping review aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of the current literature and to identify key knowledge gaps.
Your work was selected for this Prize due to having strong potential to support advocacy efforts. How could evidence on the physical health impact of weight stigma help advocates challenge blame-based narratives around obesity?
I think by showing that weight stigma is associated with adverse physical health outcomes, it supports the consideration of weight stigma as a social determinant of health and helps to challenge blame-based narratives that frame obesity as solely a matter of individual responsibility. In this way, it supports a shift towards a better understanding of the disease and reinforces calls for more respectful and non-stigmatising approaches in both public discourse and healthcare settings.
In healthcare settings, what practical changes could this evidence help encourage in care pathways, professional training, or communication with people living with obesity?
These findings can inform care pathways that promote equitable and compassionate care and help reduce barriers to healthcare access. Creating healthcare environments where people living with obesity feel respected and supported may encourage greater engagement with preventive services, follow-up care and long-term obesity management.
In practice, it can support the integration of stigma awareness into healthcare professional training, helping clinicians recognise the impact of both explicit and implicit weight bias and adopt respectful communication. This includes the use of person-first language, involving people living with obesity in shared decision-making, and focusing on individual health needs rather than assumptions or blame.
Your review presents preliminary results and identifies limitations in the current evidence base. What further research is needed to strengthen the case for advocacy, policy change and stigma-reduction strategies?
While the available literature suggests associations between weight stigma and adverse physical health outcomes, the evidence base remains heterogeneous and limited in several areas.
Further research is needed to better understand temporal and potential causal relationships between exposure to weight stigma and physical health outcomes. In addition, studies exploring the underlying biological and behavioural mechanisms would help to clarify how these associations operate in real-world contexts.
I think there is also a need for more standardised definitions and validated measurement tools for weight stigma, which would improve comparability across studies.
Finally, intervention studies are essential to evaluate effective strategies for reducing weight stigma across society and to better inform advocacy efforts and policy development.
So, where next? Do you have any other plans to help reduce stigma and improving health outcomes for people living with obesity?
For me, this topic goes far beyond my professional interest. It is closely connected to how I see care, and to the kind of person I want to be. In my daily practice as a dietitian, I will continue to advocate for more respectful, compassionate, and non-judgemental care for people living with obesity.
What has stayed with me over time are the real interactions where I could see the impact that words and simple listening can have. When people feel heard rather than judged or reduced to their weight, the whole experience of care changes.
This is something I have observed and that continues to shape the way I approach my work.
I am currently in a phase of learning, growing and contributing, and everything I am doing is driven by a goal to help create a better future for people living with obesity, where care is more respectful, more evidence-based and free from stigma.
Thank you very much, Nour, for sharing your work. Congratulations again on receiving the ECO2026 Prize for Advocacy, Impact & Innovation, presented in Istanbul. We look forward to staying up-to-date with your important research!
Read this and other abstracts from the 33rd European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2026) in Obesity Facts
This Prize was awarded with the unconditional support of Lilly. Eli Lilly & Company provided funding for the prize but had no role in the prize selection process or future direction of the winners’ work.
English 
French