Rant-Brookehaven Obesity Clinic

So there's like a marathon on of the show about obesity residents at the Brookehaven Obesity Clinic in New York....and two things made me mad abou****ching it.

1.) The narrator kept calling the people "too fat" instead of too overweight or too heavy.

2.) The narrator kept calling gastric bypass a quick fix or easy fix to obesity.

I mean come on. Have some respect for the people you're filming. They are patronized their entire lives for being overweight....and I really thought that a show about obesity would have been sensitive to that......and apparently the people who "wrote" the script didn't do enough research to know that bariatric surgery is NOT an easy fix.

UGH!!

Okay. I'm done. Any opinions?

Leigh,

I agree I have watched the show in the past and when I saw the marathon on I simply flipped past it because they just upset me.  I think that the show simply reinforces how the mainstream population already view obesity and gastric bypass surgery which is very frustrating.   Glad to know I am not the only one frustrated by the show!

Nicole

Gastric bypass is an easy fix?  My ass it is...anyone who says that can get me going big time.  I even wrote into People magazine a few years ago after one of those "Half their Size" features, where they mentioned no tricks, no surgery, no gimmicks...blah blah...they even published my comments!  I think at least half of those folks followed something like Weigh****chers or Jenny Craig, so it's not like they just lost the weight like magic and were perfect about it.  If getting  your insides permanently re-routed and having to take handfuls of vitamins for life is easy...go ahead and think that, I know better after living 7 years like this.

Most shows about weight loss **** me off...so I just keep moving past them.  I won't even watch Oprah or Dr. Phil after their nasty comments about WLS.   As long as you lose the weight and keep it off, I don't give a damn how you did it.  Diet, exercise, Weigh****chers, Jenny Craig, WLS, that drug Alli that makes you poop your head off if you eat fat, whatever....just get it done and keep it done.

OK...I havent seen that show but can someone remind me when us "real people" have the time or the money to go live in an "obesity clinic" to solve our weight issues? 

We are doing what we need to do to make ourselves healthy again!  Too bad if someone on TV doesnt like it!

I hate the whole concept of that clinic.  It infantilizes morbidly obese people to an extreme, it pathologizes obesity in a really creepy way, it doesn't seem to actually help anyone get a handle on problem eating, and the lead doctor is such an ass about WLS. 

I think it is cool to watch shows that are informational and stuff, but it is almost as if they are just making fun of overweight people....ugh...

Sadly, the very issues you point out ARE pretty common, mainstream thoughts out there.  We've all lived it.  We are/were "fat", and many people out there believe WLS IS the easy way out.

We're not going to change that mindset any time soon, if ever.  We just have to live our own journey, use our own word choices, and live in a way that keeps US on track and healther.  

Screw the rest of 'em who have never had to deal first hand with what we've known.

I was flipping channels the other day and came across the one where they couldn't move the poor guy because he was "too fat".  I literally rewound the TV three times to make sure I heard it right!  Talk about insensitive!

Grrrrrrrr................. Butt Heads!