(The Center Square) – The David Geffen Medical School at taxpayer-funded University of California at Los Angeles is among the world premier medical institutions, but its teachings about obesity have attracted a harsh national spotlight.
As the conservative Washington Free Beacon reports, first-year medical students in a required class “learn that ‘fatphobia is medicine’s status quo’ and that weight loss is a ‘hopeless endeavor.'”
Students are required to read an essay by a self-described “fat liberationist” who argues that “‘ob*sity’ is a slur ‘used to exact violence on fat people’—particularly ‘Black, disabled, trans, poor fat people.'”
That’s not what the UCLA med school tells the public on its web site reviewed by The Center Square. Among the specialist centers at the school is “the Center for Obesity & Metabolic Health,” where they “offer both surgical and non-surgical weight loss therapies.”
There “Clinical nutrition experts from the UCLA Health Center for Human Nutrition are an integral part of your metabolic weight loss program. They create customized plans to help you meet your weight loss goals and prevent future health problems.”
That’s because “obesity … increases the risk of numerous health problems. People who carry excessive weight are more likely to have heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and a range of other diseases, including cancer.
“Research has linked obesity to a higher risk of developing 13 different cancers,” the web site says.
The school’s communications office did not respond to a email and a phone call requesting an explanation of the discrepancy between what the med school teaches and what its web site tells the public.
The class that teaches what doctors call “misinformation” is called “Structural Racism and Health Equity.” Students in the class learn about “‘anti-capitalist politics’ as a principle of ‘disability justice'” read essays about “‘ableist heteropatriarchal capitalism.'” that “decry ‘racial capitalism,'” and “call for ‘moving beyond capitalism for our health.'”
The school medical center is named after Ronald Reagan.
