I’ve had almost exclusively military doctors for nearly two decades, and I can tell you they aren’t trying to respect your feelings (not that they’re dicks). If your tests come back with high cholesterol, they aren’t jumping to Lipitor or some shit, they’ll refer you to a nutritionist and tell you to exercise more. They have no problems telling you that your health troubles come from that weight crushing your organs and joints.
And that’s as a person in the military, who has to maintain a certain level if fitness to keep my job.
Got a lot to say but I’ll keep it brief-ish. Corporations love unhealthy people. They will artificially celebrate this and reinforce unhealthy lifestyles. This extends beyond weight.
Once entrapped, escape is hard. Some are passive and depressed. Some are dismissive and defensive. No matter which cycle you are in, it’s unhealthy.
I think smoking is bad like I think being overweight is bad. If a doctor says alcohol is killing you, it probably is. I don’t think hatred is deserved, but don’t expect any validation for those choices.
Surely no coincidence that being obese is a gateway to hyperconsumerism anyway. Sugary, fatty, processed snack foods are way more profitable than healthy meals.
Walking around town is free, can’t have that. Sit at this computer chair, watch advertisements and play video games instead.
Heart disease at 26? That’ll be $2k/month until you die.
Get depressed, buy the meds, never leave your couch, don’t fight back, you’re the evolution of humanity and - most of all - you are beautiful.
I am down 50+ pounds, and have another 20 to go. This is new to me, but I absolutely agree with everything you said.
Congratulations, that’s really impressive!
The meme isn’t about that, I’ve read stories of some doctors refusing to perform surguries to overweight people, but other doctors doing the surgery anyway.
The same way a lot of women get told stuff is just from their period by doctors.
My mother had a doctor that refused to move forward with knee surgery because she was so depressed and refused to do therapy because it hurt her knee so much to move around.
I guess I understand, why go through the trouble of surgery if she’s just going to be a bummer couch potato afterwards and never change her ways?
But at least she’d be a bummer couch potato whose knee didn’t threaten to give out on her whenever she tried to do laundry in the basement.
If I take my car in for new brake pads, don’t refuse me service because the transmission is on its way out.
Look. Shitty doctors exist, but when 1/3 of the US is overweight, there are underlying issues that need addressing. I only hear horror stories when an addict, alcoholic, or overweight individual in my life is feeling insecure or defensive about a prognosis. Too many people deflect and it’s enabling a much larger issues. Our basic instincts are being exploited.
I know, I’m not arguing for obesity, that would be stupid.
America’s obesity epidemic is a function of our car culture. This is the only country on God’s green Earth that feels putting in sidewalks is a moral failure.
Similarly - if you are trans and on HRT, every problem is due to your hormones.
When talking about obese individuals, the fat very easily gets in the way of surgery. Compared to a healthy patient the risk of complications during surgery is much greater and really not worth chancing it (most if the time)
I’m guessing that’s under the US health system, where doctors are incentivised to only perform surgeries with a low risk of complications
What countries medical system encourages risky surgeries? As far as I’m aware “reducing risk” is most of the game in medicine
I can’t blame doctors for letting obesity color their opinion. Look around your doctor’s waiting room. Everyone is fat. Imagine the suffering and illness they see daily due to fat. How can those observations not color their general attitude?
Everyone is fat
Exactly, which points squarely at an environmental cause, not at individual sloth/gluttony or some shit like that.
The conclusion you’re saying doctors arrive at—which I don’t doubt you’re correct about—is actually completely fucking backwards.
The environmental causes are availability of options we crave but are still not forced into, so individual responsibility is absolutely a thing.
I was obese and it sucked but I got down to a healthy weight, and keeping it off kind of still sucks but it doesn’t take a lot of time or money, in fact it’s generally cheaper.
Fast food is constantly highlighted as an impossibly unhealthy reality, the nicer places cost more and take too much time. Except you can choose passable choices in fast food.
If you can freely pick, there are fast food places that offer salads with maybe some grilled chicken, which can be healthy unless you opt to drown it in ranch.
But let’s say you are in a group and they pick a restaurant without an option like salad. Just asking for water instead of a big sugary drink gets you so much closer to healthy. Skip the fries, skip the mayo, get a smaller burger. All these things are cheaper and friendlier to a reasonable caloric budget.
It sucks because it means eating to feeling “ok” while skipping the most awesome foods and rarely getting to feel just utterly full, but that was just life when people had healthier weight.
Similarly on activity. It does suck that work has people sedentary, but our idle pursuits are similar. When I was a kid, TV was stuck on a schedule and video games were only so engaging, so we would get bored and want to do something. Maybe it was walk amongst some trees to see if anytime interesting was around. Maybe do something with a ball. Nowadays we can get endless engagement from streaming, video games, and Internet. So tempting to just be on the couch. We can still choose those more active things, but we don’t want to.
Note all this awesome stuff is still great in moderation. I just went full on gorging at a restaurant a week ago on pretty much whatever I wanted. The thing is this is maybe like once every 2 or 3 weeks, not daily like we really want to.
Look around your doctor’s waiting room. Everyone is fat.
Lots of people are old and age correlates with weight gain. But the volleyball player who blew out her ACL isn’t fat. Neither is the chemo patient who is back for a final round.
How can those observations not color their general attitude?
Doctor: “Feels like everyone I see is either sick or injured”
Nurse: “Try spending less time in the ER”
Also if they’re dentists (suddenly teeth become “bones to smile with”).
You’re going to need a root canal, not because its the best procedure for the job, but because its more expensive.
More like as soon as they leave medical school in my experience.
Have you tried not being fat?
reminder: shitpost
I’ve not not tried it
I can’t believe it took me 45 years to try that but man am I happy I did. Well, I’m almost there. None of my clothes fit anymore though.
Obesity is a disease, so it should be treated as such. It’s not more of a personal failure then getting lung cancer from smoking.
Yet tobacco companies are shamed and taxed, while the sellers of addictive junk foods and sugary waters are thrivingcand marketing for children.
And at the end, people are dying, and taxpayers are paying the cost for capitalist greed.
Nobody blames the patient for getting lung cancer, they blame the patient for smoking for years knowing the risks.
Same thing with obesity related heart issues. You aren’t being blamed for the heart issues, you are being blamed for eating yourself into obesity.
they must harm the fat in order to save the patient
/s
The patient needs fat to live.
What harm is the doctor doing to fat people in your opinion?
Isn’t it well-known that doctors frequently dismiss health concerns with “have you tried losing weight?”
When you look at how strongly obesity correlates with everything from back- and knee pains to weakened immune response to sleep issues and cardiovascular disease…
When a severely obese person has any of the above, it’s reasonable, scientifically backed diagnosis/prescription to say “these issues will probably go away by themselves if you lose weight”. This is about treating the cause and not the symptoms: When severely obese people are heavily over-represented among those with a certain disease or problem, you can try treating the symptoms, but should expect that they return rather quickly.
Of course, there are cases where the issues come from something else, but no matter who goes to the doctor with health issues, their first response will be to try to treat the post probable cause.
Weight gain can turn a small thing into a bigger thing. A outpatient procedure is more likely to turn inpatient if the patient is over 300lbs.
While I have no doubt there are doctors like that, they are the exception.
Every profession has it’s idiots…
First I’m ever hearing about it.
There is a fat acceptance movement that says you can’t control your wight, and also the only healthy way to eat is to eat whatever you want whenever you want, and if doctors want to weigh their patients or inform them of the health risks of being overweight or not do operations where excess fat would create complications, the only possible explanation for any of that is fatphobia.
That’s not what that is.
Its more just not going out of your way to be an asshole to fat people.
No theres absolutely people who believe that shit. Same as people who believe that Trump has all the answers, Jews are the problem and flat earth. The “fat acceptance”, “body shaming” and “body positivity” movements have legitimate positive roots but have also been co-opted by people who just want their bullshit view to be right.
Take “Healthy at every size” for example. You can have excellent cardiovascular fitness, great bloodwork and your weight isnt the cause of any health maladies but at some point at a certain body fat/muscle ratio (too high or low) is going to start to reduce the probablility of that being the case and people use these edge cases to justify their opinion. Look at Eddie Hall “worlds strongest man” he weighs 355lbs and over 6 foot tall, I havent seen his bloodwork but people will hold him up as an example that you can weigh 350+ but I also bet he doesnt need a scooter to get around wallmart.
There isnt an ideology or behavior on earth that cant be taken to a toxic place.
Judging the body postivity movement (which is about much more than just fat people btw) by the vocal “extemist” people is like judging vegans/vegetarians by the evangelical ones.
If you re-read the comment that you replied to first that there is a community of people who believe absolute bullshit which you deny in your reply to their comment but then admit they do in mine by refering to them as “extremists”
Doctors not taking health complaints of people who are carrying an excess of adipose tissue is a real thing, but so are people who refuse to accept that their weight is the root cause of many of their issues and do body positivity a disservice when they do
I don’t deny that those people exist, its just unfair to paint everyone in the movement as those people.
Denying care until an arbitrary amount of weight is lost.
Maybe there’s sound science behind it, such as the procedures not having been tested on larger patients (if that’s the case why don’t they just say), but mostly it just looks like a waiting list hack.
Doctors will be the first AI replacement
Probably the last one to be honest.
Not even close.
