Meet the UCLA medical school 'fat pride' staffer whose compulsory lectures warn trainee doctors that using the word obesity is 'violence' (and she's been condemned by a top Harvard doctor)

UCLA medical school had been condemned by a renowned Harvard doctor for forcing students to take a 'fat-positivity' 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 medicine's status quo' and that weight loss is a 'hopeless endeavor.'

Mercedes's article, titled 'No Health, No Care: The Big Fat Loophole in the Hippocratic Oath,' is on the required reading list for the mandatory Structural Racism and Health Equity course. 

The class syllabus, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, shows what students at the elite medical school are learning - which has attracted attention from experts nationwide who disagree with the teachings of the course.

Jeffrey Flier, the former dean of Harvard Medical School and one of the world's foremost experts on obesity, slammed the course and said 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 medicine's status quo' and that weight loss is a 'hopeless endeavor'

Jeffrey Flier(pictured), the former dean of Harvard Medical School and one of the world's foremost experts on obesity, slammed the course and said the curriculum 'promotes extensive and dangerous misinformation'

UCLA 'has centered this required course on a socialist/Marxist ideology that is totally inappropriate,' said Flier. 'As a longstanding medical educator, I found this course truly shocking.'

The essay by Mercedes details how weight has come to be 'pathologized and medicalized in racialized terms.'

She offers guidance on 'resisting entrenched fat oppression,' according to the course syllabus. 

Mercedes claims that 'ob*sity' is a slur 'used to exact violence on fat people' - particularly 'Black, disabled, trans, poor fat people.' 

'This is a profoundly misguided view of obesity, a complex medical disorder with major adverse health consequences for all racial and ethnic groups,' Flier said - adding that teaching these 'ignorant' ideas to medical students is 'malpractice'.

She uses her social media account to voice more of her 'fat-positivity' activism. 

'It's so f***ing isolating to be a disabled Black fat person working towards individual and collective liberation,' she wrote in an Instagram post - adding that being fat is a disability. 

Mercedes has also led presentations on how does 'anti-fatness show up in the work you do' - which she says includes using 'fear-mongering language in order to encourage healthy eating and physical activity'

Mercedes also taught students in a public health seminar that 'fat people are forced to contend with anti-fatness every day in every domain across the lifespan'

Mercedes says that 'making the decision to engage with healthcare for fat people often means making the decision to likely put yourself in harm's way'

She has also led presentations on how does 'anti-fatness show up in the work you do' - which she says includes using 'fear-mongering language in order to encourage healthy eating and physical activity.' 

Mercedes also taught students in a public health seminar that 'fat people are forced to contend with anti-fatness every day in every domain across the lifespan.'

She says that 'making the decision to engage with healthcare for fat people often means making the decision to likely put yourself in harm's way.'

DailyMail.com has reached out to Mercedes for comment.  

Mercedes is just one voice amidst a wave of 'fat-positivity'. Virginia Sole-Smith, a 'fat activist,' has sparked controversy for saying childhood obesity is not a problem, anti-fat bias is.

Mercedes (pictured) claims that 'ob*sity' is a slur 'used to exact violence on fat people' - particularly 'Black, disabled, trans, poor fat people'

Virginia lets her children eat whatever they want - even against the wishes of her former husband who caught his daughter eating a stick of butter. 

She is the author of 'Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture' and an advocate of dismantling diet culture and anti-fat bias. 

'We don't parent body size,' Sole-Smith said on the Pressure Cooker podcast. 'How your child is eating and how much they move their 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's not OK to be overweight, it's not OK to eat excess sugar and animal fats, it's not OK to eat junk food, it's not OK to not move your body, it's not OK to advocate being overweight is all good,' Caroline Hailstone said on one of Sole Smith's Instagram posts.

Mercedes has also received a fair share of backlash - and Flier is not the only expert to slam UCLA for including her ideas in the course curriculum. 

Nicholas Christakis is a sociologist who has spent decades providing medical care to underserved communities - including in the South Side of Chicago.

He has called the curriculum 'nonsensical' and says that the course is 'embarrassing to UCLA.' 

First-year UCLA medical students were also forced to sit through a bizarre lecture by a pro-Hamas activist who made them pray to 'mama Earth' while a faculty member sought to identify one student who refused to participate.

Lisa Gray-Garcia gave the two-hour presentation at Geffen Hall, on the university's downtown campus on March 27.

The lecture was a mandatory part of the Structural Racism and Health Equity class administered by pediatrician Lindsay Wells.

The UCLA class syllabus shows what students at the elite medical school are learning - which has attracted attention from experts nationwide who disagree with the teachings of the course

UCLA is not the only university to be criticized for incorporating certain teachings into the curriculum for DEI purposes. 

Stanford Medical School has sprinkled lessons on 'microaggressions', 'structural racism' and 'privilege' in teachings. 

Students at Yale Medical School mare required to complete an 'Advocacy and Equity' sequence on 'becoming physician advocates for health justice'.  

Columbia Medical School faculty are told they should refer to women as 'people with uteruses' to promote an 'anti-bias and Inclusive' curriculum.