Physician Fat shaming

WOW. Great article. I feel like fat shaming is one of the last "acceptable" prejudices. I was so sick and tired of hearing from my doctor I needed to lose weight at every doctor appt. I work out 3-4x a week. Hard. I'm not shoving food down my throat as quick as I can get it. I'm stuck. So when my doctor told me callously  I should get gastric by-pass surgery, with a straight face, I said, "Are you telling me I'm fat?!". The look on her face was priceless. Then I laughed and said I knew I was fat. She shook her finger at me but was much more gentle about my weight after that.

Ha! Good for you. I knew the fat shaming at the Doctor's office because even if you had a hang nail it was because of your weight.

I realize now that I am thin there was a lot more fat shaming going on... strangers treat me nicer and are a lot more helpful...

coincidentally, I just read an article that touches upon this subject. 

https://www.facebook.com/NPR/posts/10154935243366756

Fat shaming by doctors is the worst! And fat shaming other doctors and then dismissing their expertise seems somehow even worse to me.

This Fung guy sounds like a real sweetheart.  As others have said, if you don't agree with someone, attack their argument, not their appearance.

Dr. Fung seems to think that the only people who can speak authoritatively on obesity are those who are not, and very likely never have been.  Sorry there, Fung, but the best people I've met around any issue like this are those with lived experience.  Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, was born in a psychiatric hospital where two men -- a tire salesman and a doctor -- had been sent to dry out.  Both of these men -- Bill Wilson and Bob Smith -- were lifelong alcoholics who were pretty close to the end of the road, but who learned to support and help each other to stay sober, and then shared it with others, who shared it with others, who shared it with others ... and so on and so on.  A movement was born, a movement that has survived and thrived for more than 80 years and has saved untold thousands, if not millions, of people in that time.

I remember my family doctor when I was a teenager.  I wasn't overly heavy then -- I was about 150 pounds at 5'8"and large-boned, which was larger than most girls I knew but hardly reason to run off and join the circus -- but he said I needed to lose at least 30 pounds, as my "ideal" weight, according to him, was between 115 and 120.

When I was about 23 years old, I had what I can only describe as a complete emotional meltdown and decided I didn't like eating.  I lost 60 pounds in about 5 weeks and existed on black coffee and cigarettes. 

I finally hit the "ideal" weight that idiot doctor had set for me.  You could see my hip bones and every vertebrae in my spine.  My face looked like a skull wearing foundation.  My hair was falling out in clumps.  My waist measurement was smaller than that of my four-year old nephew.  I've never been that sick, or that crazy.  Not even when I was closing in on 400 pounds.

But I'd managed to become someone's "ideal".  A blind doctor on a galloping horse would not have said I was healthy at that time.

Fat shaming does more damage than these doctors, who think they're "helping" us come to terms with our obesity, could ever imagine.  Because when we're fat, we internalize the criticism.  You're not being helpful, you're telling me I'm ugly and stupid and lazy and worthless.

I won't say people like the fabulous Dr. Fung here are causing the problem, but they are sure as hell not solving it.

Im going to try to make this short......

Drs dismissing my at the time 120lb mother when I was an infant that my horrible "colicing" (come to find out it wasnt) for the first 13 months of my life was her being an over reacting first time mom. Only time I would stop crying was being fed and for about an hour after. Drs told my mom well just feed her as needed she must be hungry. I was started on solids much earlier than most. And pedialyte was a mainstay in my life till I was 10.

So yup by age 2 I was overweight. But as I was on solids mom fed me healthy (Ive never been a major junk eater). But the weight still came on with vengence. Even my RN aunt seen first hand how I would gain weight eating less than my cousins or sisters and being 1000xs more active. So yup then came the shaming of my mother and me over my weight, from drs. It was all calories in calories out to them. By age 21 I was 402. I had enough and had a DS at 22. Even my surgeon at first thought I was more inline with most obese people. Till my labs came back.....402lbs and not even pre diabetic, perfectly healthy by all standards. Except a bit of low sodium. During surgery found most all my "fat" was skin deep. Very little fat around the organs. 

Now fast forward to 10 years post op (last year), I had 3 adrenal crisis (google it). Im healthy, not malnurished, nothing. So went to dr in may (so almost 11 years post) and said, this is bull**** What is going on because my energy levels are squat. 

Well because im so damned healthy, its hard to not want to blow me off for that reason. Because you look at me and go shes not sick. Yeah watch me after a tough day or anything stressful, then looks like death is after me. Come to find out I have Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. Cept now we are worried my adrenals are completely failing for 33 years of no treatment. Yes CAH caused my weight problem, basically because my body over produced certain steroids and not enough of others. Im not gonna go into all of it.

I still highly dislike drs. Cause all the **** Ive gone through is because THEY wouldnt run a damn blood panel as an infant. Im actually lucky I am alive. 

Dr shaming is everywhere. 

Thank you for posting this.  A friend of mine suggested I look at Dr/ Fung's method for losing weight, and I did.  I'm not having surgery for a few more months, and really need to lose some weight.  I've managed to lose 11 lbs in 10 days.  But I know without a doubt that I cannot sustain this.  

My husband thought that if I could follow it, I would lose the weight and not need surgery. As an FYI - he'd rather I not lose weight than have the suregery- but only because he's very scared.

When Dr. Fung writes about weight loss surgery, it's obvious that he doesn't even bother to get informed. bariatrics-surgically-enforced-fasting He takes worst case scenarios and presents them as fact.

I will keep following a low carb diet- now and after surgery- but I'm glad that there are doctors out there who are truly working to help people in the fight against obesity.