Registered dietitian Lillian Yin joins us to talk about why weight discrimination is so harmful. She shares her vision for a nourishing future of public health and nutrition, as well as practical ways to challenge weight bias and discrimination in our daily lives and areas of work.

Season 1 of Mind the Disruption was a success! We’ve decided to release bonus content from three episodes. This standalone bonus episode features more from Lillian Yin who works at Vancouver Coastal Health and who was a reflective guest on Episode 5 Disrupting Food Insecurity & Fat Phobia.

(00:00) Introduction

(02:41) Interview with Lillian Yin

Episode Guest: Lillian Yin is of East-Asian descent with roots in Taiwan and China. As a registered dietitian and diabetes educator, she has been privileged to serve in spaces across the spectrum of life, from infancy and pregnancy, through adolescence and older adult years, and various areas of the health system ranging from acute and primary care to community and public health. Recently, she joined the Health Promotion Team at Vancouver Coastal Health Authority as Team Lead to support the public health team in doing more upstream, health promotion work, addressing the social determinants, root causes of health and challenging dominant cultures which fuel the systems we live, work, and play in. Her principles of care are framed by social justice, equity, strength-based and cultural safety. Driven by her passion to advance social justice and achieve health equity within the wider system through collective action, she is currently pursuing a Master in Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.

Learn more:

Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia (Sabrina Strings, 2019)

Weight Bias & Stigma (UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health)

The Focus is on Health, Not Weight (Vancouver Coastal Health, 2019)

Episode Credits: This episode is produced by Rebecca Cheff, Carolina Jimenez, and our host Bernice Yanful (NCCDH). Special thanks to our episode guest Lillian Yin. Coordination of communications, webpage development and dissemination are led by Caralyn Vossen (NCCDH). Thanks to Claire Betker and the rest of the NCCDH team for their support. Technical production and original music by Chris Perry. Artwork by comet art + design.

Mind the Disruption is a podcast by the NCCDH. Visit https://nccdh.ca/learn/podcast/ to learn more about the podcast and our work.

The NCCDH is hosted by St. Francis Xavier University. This podcast is made possible through a financial contribution from the Public Health Agency of Canada through funding for the NCCDH. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Established in 2005, the NCCDH is one of the six National Collaborating Centres (NCCs) for Public Health that work together to promote the use of scientific research and other knowledge to strengthen public health practices, programs and policies in Canada. For more information, visit the NCCPH website.