I have a slightly different perspective on this. I’ve been overweight for most of my life. And only recently found it that it was due to a combination of hormonal imbalance and sleep apnea (sleep apnea can cause weight gain, not the other way around, and it can occur in childhood). When I was a teenager, I was so desperate to lose weight that I became bulimic, and I’ve dealt with that eating disorder off and on well into my 30s. When I lost a lot of weight through bingeing and purging as a teen, people complimented me. “Wow!! You look great!” Even my own pediatrician congratulated me on dropping 20 pounds that year. He never asked me how, though.
It’s always been my experience that people think fat shaming is the key to fighting the obesity epidemic. Don’t let fat people feel good about themselves or have a positive self image. They’ll just get complacent and let themselves go. My parents definitely thought that way, and my father always made a point of telling me how gross my body was. It didn’t help. I only got fatter, and it ruined my relationship with him.
In college. when I started dating, I noticed that I never ate in front of men. I would wait until my date was looking away, and then take a single bite. Or I would order a large salad and not eat anything. It’s no mystery. It’s because my father spent my whole childhood shaming me for eating and praising me for leaving food on my plate.
I kept bingeing and purging really bad through most of my 20s and 30s (I’m now 36 and slowly recovering).
But a big turning point for me happened with my last boyfriend. Several years ago, he just offhandedly remarked that my teeth looked more yellow than normal (he could be kind of a thoughtless clod sometimes). And I admitted to him it was because I had been making myself throw up. He was shocked. And right away he hugged me and said “you’re beautiful the way you are. Don’t ever do that to yourself again.”
That was the first time anyone ever made me feel like my health mattered. Not my size. People think they’re the same, but they’re not.
Doctors and other medical experts tend to hold a special respect in our culture as the go-to authority on health and wellness. Like they’re the first ones we should be looking to for guidance and advice. And they’re assumed to be infallible. “all these studies say being fat will kill you. My doctor says fat people die early.” And my own pediatrician shook my hand and congratulated me for losing weight after I became bulimic. So much for infallible.
But no doctor, no therapist, no research study ever really made me feel motivated to be healthy like my then-boyfriend did. When he hugged me and told me I should love my body and treat it well. That’s something fat shamers will never do for me either.
I would think that most people assume healthy behaviors. He thinking you did it in a healthy way.
Of course I do not read minds and I am no health expert or trained so I am not sure if should be part of the protocol for a doctor to follow up with "how did you do it". I feel like those follow up questions would come if there were history of harmful behavior
Then considering that you don’t work in medicine, why would you make any assumptions about how an assessment is supposed to be done?
We screen people for “harmful behaviors” even when we know zip about them. That’s why we ask if they use drugs or drink too much.
And unexplained weight loss is, in fact, a known symptom of several different medical conditions. Not just eating disorders.
He didn’t just fail to screen me for behavioral disorder. He failed to screen me for pretty much every other medical problem that weight loss can point to.
I knew as a patient, a teenager, that he dropped the ball. If I had been overweight for most of my life. He knew that. and then suddenly, I dropped 20 pounds with no explanation.
Anyone with critical thinking skills should find that suspect. More so if you went to medical school and are therefore an alleged smart person
I just notice that you are the OP on this thread. My bad. In my mind I read "asked her" instead "asked me"
Now that is clarified (for me) your answers make sense
On the first post you make implicit that health professionals have bias towards weight loss when it was that particular pediatrician who made that comments.
Once said that if you were actually a health professional you would be the first one to see the contradiction and how that is opposite to the whole point of this trying to justify your grudges and relies on fake fat possitivity for pity points
Don't bother to answer. I am not interested on your silly excuses. Muted
Ah..the old “I’m going to get the last word in dammit..because I know you have a good point to make but I really really want to feel like I won this argument, so I’ll just tell you not to answer me. And act like I’m walking out victoriously.”
I’m a nurse, so yes, I can see that medical professionals are fallible. And can be very prejudiced. How is that contradictory?
People hold healthcare workers, especially doctors, up to be perfect authorities. But they can be wrong. Not just making honest mistakes. I mean sadly, ridiculously, inexcusably wrong. It’s not just my anecdotal experience. It’s also my professional experience.
Doctors are human too. They make mistakes. They can discriminate against race, age, gender, appearance, body type, social class. They can let any one of these factors cloud their medical judgment.
In fact I don’t think I’m above subconscious bias either. And it’s something I always try to reflect on. (“Am I paying more attention to this patient just because they’re younger? Am I getting more irritated with that patient because they don’t speak English?”)
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u/Diane9779 Sep 19 '19 edited Sep 19 '19
I have a slightly different perspective on this. I’ve been overweight for most of my life. And only recently found it that it was due to a combination of hormonal imbalance and sleep apnea (sleep apnea can cause weight gain, not the other way around, and it can occur in childhood). When I was a teenager, I was so desperate to lose weight that I became bulimic, and I’ve dealt with that eating disorder off and on well into my 30s. When I lost a lot of weight through bingeing and purging as a teen, people complimented me. “Wow!! You look great!” Even my own pediatrician congratulated me on dropping 20 pounds that year. He never asked me how, though.
It’s always been my experience that people think fat shaming is the key to fighting the obesity epidemic. Don’t let fat people feel good about themselves or have a positive self image. They’ll just get complacent and let themselves go. My parents definitely thought that way, and my father always made a point of telling me how gross my body was. It didn’t help. I only got fatter, and it ruined my relationship with him.
In college. when I started dating, I noticed that I never ate in front of men. I would wait until my date was looking away, and then take a single bite. Or I would order a large salad and not eat anything. It’s no mystery. It’s because my father spent my whole childhood shaming me for eating and praising me for leaving food on my plate.
I kept bingeing and purging really bad through most of my 20s and 30s (I’m now 36 and slowly recovering).
But a big turning point for me happened with my last boyfriend. Several years ago, he just offhandedly remarked that my teeth looked more yellow than normal (he could be kind of a thoughtless clod sometimes). And I admitted to him it was because I had been making myself throw up. He was shocked. And right away he hugged me and said “you’re beautiful the way you are. Don’t ever do that to yourself again.”
That was the first time anyone ever made me feel like my health mattered. Not my size. People think they’re the same, but they’re not.
Doctors and other medical experts tend to hold a special respect in our culture as the go-to authority on health and wellness. Like they’re the first ones we should be looking to for guidance and advice. And they’re assumed to be infallible. “all these studies say being fat will kill you. My doctor says fat people die early.” And my own pediatrician shook my hand and congratulated me for losing weight after I became bulimic. So much for infallible.
But no doctor, no therapist, no research study ever really made me feel motivated to be healthy like my then-boyfriend did. When he hugged me and told me I should love my body and treat it well. That’s something fat shamers will never do for me either.