Supporting Black Female Patient Health
Racial discrimination has adverse effects on a range of health outcomes for minority families. As providers, we need to use a multifaceted approach to address racial discrimination and its impact on the health of Black children and adolescents.
Challenges with Obesity
Research shows that Black women experience some of the highest obesity rates in the nation, as nearly 2/3 of the population meet BMI criteria for obesity, and Black female adolescents are on the pathway to these same inequities from an early age.
Obesity affects all communities differently.
Black and Latinx/Hispanic youth, and those from lower-income households, experience disproportionate rates of obesity driven by intersecting behavioral, cultural, psychosocial, and environmental factors.
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Seeing the Disparities
These disparities are not simply individual challenges; they reflect the enduring effects of structural racism, socioeconomic inequity, and limited access to healthy foods, safe activity spaces, insurance coverage, and effective treatment options.
Many Black families also carry a long history of medical mistrust rooted in biased care, harmful interactions, and exclusion from health-promoting systems. This is compounded by the impact of both conscious and unconscious racism within clinical encounters, along with societal beauty standards that seldom include or affirm Black girls.
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Our Role as Pediatric Providers
Here, you’ll find tools designed to elevate culturally attuned, family-centered, and equity-driven tools and resources for obesity treatment—because every child deserves compassionate, high-quality care, and every clinician deserves support in delivering it.
By engaging with this resource hub, you are joining a movement to close long-standing gaps in care, strengthen trust, and support adolescents who have too often been underserved
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Talking to patients about health opposed to weight
- Language to avoid
- Consider cultural norms in the family
Collaboration vs Instuction
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lower weight or BMI ≠ healthy
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considering other social determinants of of health
The Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) framework highlights the importance of these contextual factors, such as food insecurity, neighborhood safety, access to recreation, and intergenerational trauma in shaping health outcomes