Tag Archives: weight stigma

A Sensible Approach to Healthy Kids

Folks of ALL ages dancing their hearts out!

I have to admit that the blog post I did on Monday broke my heart. The idea that it is even possible that a six-year-old girl may have died because of weight stigma is just so sad. I need to reiterate, that none of us can know precisely what that doctor was thinking. But the testimony she gave at her own trial makes me more than a little suspicious.

And you know what? It doesn’t have to be this way.

There are far simpler ways to help kids be healthy. Not the least of which is simply helping them find safe places to play and joyful places to move their bodies. Because one of the best things we can do to help kids be healthy is offer them fun ways to get exercise. Yet another study came out this week that indicates that cognitive abilities among kids have a lot more to do with fitness levels than BMI. But this fact, doesn’t seem to deter those who feel the best way to help kids be healthy is to send home a BMI report card. Despite the fact that BMI is very loosely correlated with health in young children, and that focusing on BMI makes kids more likely to develop eating disorders, and that focusing on BMI tends to lead to shame in kids which not only makes them develop other bad health behaviors, but also tends to make them gain weight, we are STILL PERPETRATING THIS NONSENSE IN SCHOOLS. Let’s focus on helping kids be healthy without increasing the risk from eating disorders. Remember this chart?

Helping kids be healthy can be positive and fun. This past weekend I led some fitness demonstrations at a local event. The City of Hope hosted its Foothill Fitness Challenge event here in Duarte and over 1,200 people showed up. It was so much fun! I led two fun dance demonstrations and was so excited to see moms and dads and kids all dancing together and having a good time. Check it out:

It made my heart so happy. Little kids and big kids and grandmas were all dancing together. If we want to help kids be happy, LET’S DO THAT! Let’s find some kids, put on some music and dance with them. Sure maybe it’s simplistic, but it’s also fun and is likely to do no harm.

So what do you say? I challenge you to connect with a kid and go out and play this week. Dance, bike, throw a ball around–whatever makes you (and them) happy.

Love,

Jeanette (AKA The Fat Chick)

Six Year Old Girl Dies–Diagnosed as Fat?

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Sorry to start your week out with such a sad story, but I think it needs to be told. Late last week I became aware of the story of Claudialee, a six-year-old girl who passed away after being misdiagnosed with type 2 diabetes, when she actually had type 1 diabetes. There is a very detailed account of the story here.

I’m not going to go into every detail of this story, but I did want to point out a few things that stand out for me. One is that Claudialee has a family history of diabetes. Another is that the doctor diagnosed Claudialee as obese. It is clear that the doctor was deeply concerned about the young child’s weight–prescribing diet and exercise in an effort to get her to lose weight. It is also clear that the mother closely followed the doctor’s recommendations–carefully monitoring what Claudialee ate and making sure she got plenty of exercise.

What is not clear is why the doctor felt so strongly that this child had Type 2 Diabetes as opposed to Type 1. According to a source cited in the article (The National Institute of Health) at that age group, Type 1 Diabetes has an incidence of about 20 in every 100,000 kids, whereas Type 2 Diabetes has an incidence of .4 in every 100,000 kids or 1 in every 250,000 kids. What’s more, at that age, Type 1 Diabetes is a far more urgent problem than Type 2 Diabetes. So what led to the doctor’s misdiagnosis?

We may never know for sure. But it does invite one to speculate whether the child’s weight was a factor. Clearly, getting Claudialee’s weight down was a prime part of the prescription to the parent. And as the child’s weight went down, the doctor neglected to do some of the critical follow-up blood tests that would have indicated that something was drastically wrong.

The article states:

Because Mercado [the doctor] had locked in on type 2, she did not monitor her patient’s blood. She did not tell Irma [the child’s mother] to purchase a $20 blood sugar meter from the drugstore. She did not ask Irma about the frequency with which her daughter drank and urinated. And neither she nor Cabatic [another doctor] described to Irma the danger signs to look out for.

When asked in court, why the doctor seemed so certain that the child had type 2 diabetes when type 1 diabetes was so much more prevalent among children that age, she stood by her original diagnosis:

“How many type 2 infant diabetics have you treated?” a lawyer asked her.

“A lot,” she replied. “Maybe it’s geographical, because I work at Brooklyn as an assistant professor and also in wellness program where there are a lot of obese children, so we diagnose a lot of children with type 2 diabetes.”

Clearly there may have been other issues at play here. Claudialee was on Medicaid and doctors are paid significantly less for treating patients on Medicaid than they are for those with private insurance. The doctor was not board-certified, and the article points out that finding board certified physicians willing to work in clinics that take Medicaid can be difficult. And this is a single case where a single doctor has been convicted of malpractice. We will never know exactly what was in the doctor’s mind.

I but I personally found myself wondering if this doctor had ever previously considered that she may have a bias against fat patients–and maybe even fat children with low SES in particular. I wonder, had this doctor considered the potential for her own bias in this arena, would that child still be alive? Would Claudialee still be running around and playing today?

We certainly have plenty of evidence for a seeming “hysteria” around the issue of childhood Type 2 diabetes. A simple google search of “childhood diabetes epidemic” yields hundreds and hundreds of articles. This hysteria has spawned a number of shaming techniques aimed at children despite the fact that shame has been proven over and over again to be ineffective at treating obesity at any age, that shame is more likely to make kids engage in unhealthy behaviors, and that eating disorders are much, MUCH more prevalent among children than diabetes of any kind.

All I know for sure, is that stories like that of Claudialee get me even more fired up to fight against weight stigma in medicine. And that passion leads me to come to you with a plea. The Association for Size Diversity And Health and the Size Diversity Task force have embarked on a documentary film project to help doctors see and understand weight stigma and weight bias in medicine. This project is called the Resolved project. But this project needs a little bit of help from you. We are raising funds to finish the documentary on Go Fund Me here. Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Even if you can only give a few dollars, that will help. And if you don’t have a few dollars to spend, would you consider sharing this with your friends and asking them to help? Let’s see if we can end weight stigma and weight bias in the healthcare industry for good. And maybe, just maybe we won’t have stories like Claudialee’s any more.

Love,

Jeanette (The Fat Chick)

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Professor Terrible Learns about Consequences

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I was oh so VERY happy today to read that the University of New Mexico has decided to Censure Professor Terrible, (AKA Professor Geoffrey Miller) about his now infamous tweet. For those of you who have been on a media fast or have been living under a rock, Geoffrey Miller Tweeted:

As I predicted, a media “sharknado” of epic proportions ensued. Geoffrey issued a few half-hearted apologies and then, when that didn’t work, he claimed the tweet was part of a “social experiment” in some “research” he was conducting.

Except, um, no. Both universities where Geoffrey teaches, UNM and New York University determined that this tweet does not meet the requirements for university “research” which among other things, would have required pre-approval by an institutional review board.

So, after several months of review, the University of New Mexico has decided to officially censure Professor Terrible and have demanded that Miller:

Not serve on any committee involving the admission of graduate students to the psychology department for the duration of his time as a faculty member at the university.
Work with the faculty co-advisers of the psychology department’s diversity organization to develop a plan for sensitivity training on obesity (for himself to undergo, said a university spokeswoman). The plan must be approved by a co-adviser or by the chair of the department.
Be assigned a faculty mentor for three years with whom he will meet on a regular basis to discuss potential problems.
Have his work monitored by the chair of the department.
Apologize to the department and his colleagues for his behavior.

All of which seems completely reasonable and on the right track to me. Now if you read the comments section (which you should probably never, ever do by the way) in the publications where this is being reported, you’ll see a lot of people jumping up and down and screaming that academics have gotten out of hand and that political correctness has taken over the country. You’ll also read a lot of comments screaming about First Amendment rights and censorship.

To which (after breathing in a paper bag to calm myself down) I offer this response. Even though censure sounds like censor, they are not the same thing. The University of New Mexico found that Miller’s tweet violated three different UNM Faculty Handbook policies. Presuming Miller read the handbook when he became a professor at UNM, he knew what he was and was not allowed to say in a public forum. He chose to ignore those rules. The fact that the University subsequently chose to discipline him for violating those rules is perfectly reasonable and appropriate. It is not censorship.

His behavior brought shame upon his employer, caused students to call into question whether they had been discriminated against based on appearance, and called into question whether the admissions process at this university was fair. I’m not sure whether or not this opened the University up to a lawsuit, but I’m fairly sure that legal dollars were spent assessing a potential threat.

And I’d like to point out, that Dr. Miller got a relatively light sentence. He didn’t lose his job. They didn’t dock his pay. They simply have to make sure that it’s clear that Miller’s prejudice can’t be connected with the University’s admissions process.

I would argue that the many, many graduate students who are denied access to higher education because of the way they look are paying a much higher cost than Professor Terrible. Recent research has offered further evidence of this discrimination and the lasting economic effects experienced by those who are subject to this discrimination. These students do not get “censured” they simply don’t get accepted to University–and I consider that a much more serious consequence than the slap on the wrist “poor Geoffrey” has to endure.

I suppose in a way, I need to thank “poor, downtrodden, Professor Terrible”. He brought this issue to light in a very public way, he caused a university to further examine their own bias around size and weight, and got a lot of people to open their minds to the effect that weight stigma has on higher education–well at least those people who are not writing in the comment section. Well except for you of course. I am confident that you can write stuff in the comment section below that is insightful and intelligent, because you are the best readers ever.

Love,

The Fat Chick

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Why We Can’t Forget Dr. Geoffrey Miller AKA Professor Terrible

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It seems a lot of the uproar surrounding Dr. Geoffrey Miller has died down. But a new study out of Bowling Green University helps to confirm that this issue of discrimination against fat college applicants is real and maybe it’s really, really important that we don’t stop talking about it.

For those of you who might not remember, Dr. Geoffrey Miller got himself in just a little hot water for tweeting:

“Dear obese PhD applicants: if you don’t have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won’t have the willpower to do a dissertation #truth”

As I predicted, the PR poo storm did indeed hit “Biblical proportions”–at least for a while. Dr. Geoffrey tried a multitude of evasion tactics, including a half-hearted, insincere apology and claiming that he was doing some sort of research experiment.

Many of us, including me called shenanigans on his post tweet wiggling. And the University of New Mexico pledged to look into the whole “research experiment” claim. They did. And not surprisingly, they decided that the claim was baseless, that the tweet doesn’t qualify as research and they are continuing a disciplinary investigation. UNM suggests that the investigation would take several more weeks. NYU, has not indicated they have any intent of pursuing disciplinary action against the tweeting professor.

Since then, the world has not paid much attention to Dr. Geoffrey Miller or the issue of fat discrimination in college. And that’s not good.

Because the study out of Bowling Green indicates that this business of fat discrimination for college applicants is a really big problem. And as the amazing Lesley Kinzel of Two Whole Cakes points out in her brilliant article in xoJane, this is hardly the first study to indicate that fat bias in college admissions.

But the Bowling Green study looks very specifically at the issue of when college students experience the discrimination and the disproportionate effect the discrimination may have on women. The study found that when fat and thin students did an in-person interview, the fat applicants were less likely to be admitted to college. However, the study found, when applicants were interviewed over the phone, fat students were admitted at about the same rate as thin ones.

So my dear readers, I suggest that this is no time to be quiet on the subject of Dr. Geoffrey Miller, his ill-considered tweets or the subject of discrimination in college admissions. Maybe now would be a good time to write some letters to NYU and UNM to let them know that Dr. Geoffrey Miller should not be let off the hook and that we are deeply concerned about college admissions discrimination.

Love,

The Fat Chick

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When doctors are wrong.

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I recently watched this video–a TED talk–by Dr. Peter Attia. You may have seen it as it’s become quite a viral sensation over the last few weeks. But even if you have seen it, you might find it useful to watch again. So here it is:

While I don’t agree with absolutely everything Dr. Attia has to say, I do think he brings up a few important points. One issue is that some doctors, scientists, and other medical professionals are really starting to question the causal nature of the link between obesity and diabetes. I think this is an important area that will require a lot more study. And I think it is our job to continue to push for this continued study.

But one issue that I want to particularly want to highlight here is how hard it seems to be for doctors to admit they are wrong. Dr. Attia is clearly deeply moved. He feels a tremendous sense of remorse for how he treated that poor woman with diabetes. Once he realized the level to which he had allowed stigma to affect his treatment of this woman he was devastated.

Many of us would be quick to state, well he should be. He may have deeply hurt this woman. He may not have given her the best medical care. Many of us don’t go to the doctor because we are so afraid of being hurt just this way at the doctor’s office or the hospital. Some of us have died because of this.

To which I would respond, “Yes, that’s true.”

But I think it’s also important to see what this video has to teach us about doctors and what it might be like for them to understand that they were wrong about something. We look to doctors to fix everything. We ask them to make us well and to bring us back from the brink of death. It takes a certain amount of arrogance to hold a person’s beating heart in your hand and endeavor to fix it. And I imagine there is a certain amount of pain when you have to tell somebody or tell their family that you can’t fix it. You can’t make it all better. You are not god. And I’m not sure that the pain ever goes away.

Please understand. I am not making excuses for doctors who bully and stigmatize fat people. It is wrong, and it needs to stop. Now. That is why I am working so closely with the Size Diversity Task Force and the Association for Size Diversity And Health on the Resolved project. We need to share our stories. We need doctors and the public to understand that weight stigma is extremely damaging to fat people in medical settings and is sometimes even fatal. There was a period of years in my life when I was quite sick and might have died based on the assumptions that doctors had made about me. So I get it. This must change.

But I think, if we want our work to be effective, if we want things to change, we need to be perceptive and understand what it means to help doctors understand that they are wrong about this. We need to understand this–not so we can let them off the hook–not so we can let them down easy– so we can find the best path towards an actual solution, so we can understand why many doctors are so resistant, and so we can better understand why this is taking so long.

The issue of weight stigma in medicine is complex and nuanced. But I do know one thing. It will only change if a lot of us continue to work together to bring about change. I would love to hear your thoughts about this issue. And I would love to have your continued support to make the Resolved project a success! Click here for more information about how you can participate.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Like my posts? You’ll love my stuff!

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Paging Doctor Good…

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Sometimes fat chicks have to shop a little harder to find a good doctor…

Well, yet another study has come out indicating that fat stigma is alive and well among medical students. Even NPR (with it’s RWJ-fueled, anti-fat slant) released a story about this study conducted among medical students in South Carolina. Over one third of the students tested, demonstrated moderate to strong bias against obese people. What’s more two thirds of those students who demonstrated fat bias were even aware that they had any bias against overweight and obese subjects. And while the study only checked bias among students in one school, it is clearly in line with other studies that demonstrate fat bias among doctors and med students.

None of this comes as much of a surprise to overweight and obese people seeking health care in this country. Many of us have experienced not only a flat refusal to treat the illness or injury for which we are seeking care, but also outright and overt disdain from our doctors. I have spoken extensively about my own story in the past. And as I have reviewed the videos that have been submitted for the Resolved Project created by the Size Diversity Task Force and ASDAH, I’ve cataloged so many distressing stories. We are compiling a veritable library of cases of little kids put on speed, doctors refusing care and medically supervised fat shaming.

It’s so hard to find a good doctor that will treat us with respect. It can be a long and arduous search. So it’s probably not a shock that another report was released last week that shows that overweight and obese patients are more likely to engage in “doctor shopping”. If one in three doctors coming out of medical school are displaying recognized or unrecognized bias against people of size, it makes sense that we have to look a little harder. What I find interesting about the study however is the way it connects doctor shopping with quality of care. One of the lead doctors from the Johns Hopkins study, Dr. Kimberly A. Gudzune, stated:

“There’s something going wrong in these doctor-patient relationships that make these switches so frequent for this group of people… The real problem here is that the health of overweight and obese patients who doctor shop is being compromised. Because they do not remain with their doctors for very long, they are ending up in the emergency room, likely for things that could have been taken care of in a primary care office.”

I wonder, does this point to yet another reason why fat stigma may be causing health problems that are currently blamed on fat? I’ve stated before, and I’ll state again, there is no proof that weight loss improves health. (For one thing, we can’t get enough people to keep enough weight off for long enough to do a real test.) We also know that people who engage in healthy behavior live longer, regardless of body size. What would be very interesting to me would be to see what impact medical training to reduce weight stigma would have on the health of fat patients. That’s the study I would like to see.

In the meantime, I guess we’ll just have to keep searching for Doctor Good…

Buy my book: The Fat Chick Works Out! (Fitness that is Fun and Feasible for Folks of All Ages, Shapes Sizes and Abilities)–available in softcover and e-book versions

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Fun with Dick and Jane (and Why Tim doesn’t Exercise)

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See Tim develop an eating disorder…

Oh my God. Where do I even start with this monstrosity? I was going along, minding my own business, eating my breakfast and checking out this wonderful post on Adios Barbie when I ran into this picture linked to by Allison Epstein. And I nearly choked on my Cheerios.(R) Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Look! It’s Fat Shaming with Dick and Jane:

See Dick and Jane and Pat. She Dick and Jane and Pat fat shaming Tim. See Tim. See Tim embody negative fat stereotypes. See Dick and Jane and Pat revel in their thin privilege. See Tim go on a diet. See Tim get slimmer. See Tim get fatter. See Tim get even fatter. See Mom and Dad panic. Panic parents panic! See Tim get a gastric sleeve. See Tim learn about dumping syndrome. See Mom and Dad buy Tim dark colored pants. Dump Tim dump! Oh No! Now Tim smells funny. Isn’t he funny? See Dick and Jane and Pat laugh. See Tim want to die. Die Tim, die…

The thing that really scares me, I mean full-out, ooga-booga, petrifies me, is that there are three organizations that have signed on to this ad. That means at least three, purportedly professional people (and probably more) not only signed off on, but actually paid somebody to create this crap. But that’s okay (they reason) because kids need to get out and play more, right? And research shows, the way to get kids to go outside and play is to shame them, right? Right?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no and how about, no!

Despite the ongoing research that indicates that fat shame does not lead to permanent weight loss, and that fat stigma leads to even less healthy behaviors among kids like disordered eating, binge drinking, and more smoking, various white-coat-wearing idiots feel the need to create ads like this one. Why? Are they trying to create the medical equivalent of this exercise video “accidentally” catching a pooping man on camera? (Is it an accident, or an all-new, low-bar in publicity stunts? Either way, it’s a hits bonanza!) Do they not care that they are harming families and especially children with their stupid ads as long as they fuel parental panic and get lots of clicky poos for their hit counts? Or have they really just not bothered to check any of the literature that shows that fat stigma harms people? Hmmm, evil or simply, criminally irresponsible? Hard to imagine that either are qualities I look for in a medical professional.

What is so sad, is that this ad is likely to make Tim less interested in exercise. And this ambivalence towards exercise may last a lifetime.

But for those of you out there who are still twisting a hankie in your sweaty fingers or running around in circles yelling, “But what do we do?” I have this advice. If you want Tim to exercise:

1. Create emotionally safe places for Tim to play–free from bullying or shaming.

2. Create physically safe places for Tim to play–safe from assault and other crimes.

3. Help Tim reconnect with and feel pride in the body he has right now.

4. Provide safe, well-planned and excellently-executed physical education classes, and

5. Surround Tim with role models for physical fitness that embody all shapes and sizes and abilities–like the amazing Ragen Chastain in this recent video interview from Huffington Post Live.

Seriously people. If you want kids to exercise, give them physically and emotionally safe places to do it, give them proper instruction, provide them with great role models and teach them that exercise is something that we do because we love our bodies.

Then Dick and Jane and Pat and Tim and Sally and everybody can live happily ever after. That is all.

Love,

The Fat Chick

P.S. Want help getting started with exercise? My book and DVD are designed to help beginners to safely and joyfully integrate physical activities into their lives. Enter the code DickAndJane in the discount code box to save $5 off the cover price!

Ellen and the Biggest Bully

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I love the Ellen show. I love the sweet, silly nature of it. I love the dance breaks. I love Ellen’s work to end bullying. So I was so very sad when one of my readers gave me a heads up that Jillian Michaels was going to be interviewed on the Ellen show. Sure enough, the show aired yesterday, and I am so very disappointed. I am so sad that Ellen had professional bully Jillian Michaels on her show for a super soft interview. First, she let Jillian go on and on about how she’s helping people with The Biggest Loser. Please. Who exactly is Jillian helping with that show? Scientific studies have been conducted. One of those studies indicates that people are less likely to exercise after watching The Biggest Loser. So the show discourages exercise. What about weight loss? According to Yoni Freedhoff in his excellent article “When Science Met the Biggest Loser” even former contestants of the show are unlikely to keep the weight off. There are a few, who have since made their body size into a career with lucrative speaking engagements and product endorsements who manage to stay thin. A group of researchers including the show’s own Robert Huizenga have determined that those participating in shows like The Biggest Loser face an extremely significant metabolic slowdown after their weight loss, making it very difficulty and extremely unlikely that participants will maintain their weight loss. Another study cited in Freedhoff’s excellent article indicates that people who watched even a single episode of The Biggest Loser led viewers to “dramatically increase their own hateful and negative biases towards those with obesity”.

So who is Jillian helping? She’s making millions of dollars participating in a show that increases stigma against people of size, makes people less likely to exercise and espouses a weight loss method almost guaranteed to leave participants even larger in the long run.

Next, Jillian went on to complain that her role on the show is taken out of context and that people see her as a “cartoon caricature”. Yet, in this same episode of Ellen, Jillian participates in a segment where she “yells at Ellen” and is in turn yelled at by Sean Hays for not, yelling at Ellen well enough. The clip concludes with Ellen and Sean making sure Jillian is gone and then stuffing popcorn and donuts into their face as quickly as they can. So if Jillian worried about her image as the woman who yells at people a lot, she sure has a funny way of dispelling that image. I think it important to mention the one thing in this clip that is accurate. There are studies that indicate that shaming and bullying people is more likely to produce binge eating and other negative health habits than to encourage healthy habits. So score one for accuracy there. But I don’t think Jillian is misunderstood. She is a professional bully. She makes her living by finding new ways to humiliate and shame fat people. She makes MILLIONS of dollars at it. Misunderstood? I think she’s understood only too well. If by chance there is some shred of decency in her, if she really doesn’t believe in behaving like a cartoon villain, guess what? All she had to do was walk away from the show and not come back. All she had to do was turn down those big fat paychecks. She didn’t. She may use that “I’m helping people” line to make herself feel better, but she isn’t making people feel better. She isn’t making people healthier. What she’s making is money and LOTS of it. What’s not to understand?

Then Jillian went on to a section where she busted some exercise myths. Please. As if Jillian Michaels is somebody we should trust to fill us in on health and fitness. The Biggest Loser is one of the greatest perpetrators of exercise myths on the planet. As I pointed out in two previous posts, just about everything they do on The Biggest Loser goes against solid exercise science. And as was stated previously in this post, science indicates that The Biggest Loser does more harm than good. Either Jillian is in agreement with what happens on The Biggest Loser which demonstrates poor analytical skills, or she’s in disagreement with what happens on The Biggest Loser and participates merely to make a buck. Either way, this is not a person I’m going to turn to for solid advice about health and fitness.

I can’t say I’m disappointed in Jillian. She delivered exactly the kind of nonsense I thought she would. But I am disappointed that Ellen caved to whatever pressure was brought to bear and allowed someone like Jillian Michaels on her show. I’m so sad that Ellen offered yet another media platform to a person who makes her living hurting and humiliating fat people.

By the way, the petition to keep kids off The Biggest Loser is still live. If you haven’t signed yet, you still can. Why not do it Right Now?

Love,

The Fat Chick

First Do No Harm: Are Doctors Who Discriminate Hurting Us?

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Hippocrates: “First, do no harm.”

There’s been a fairly hot story in the news this week about a Shrewsbury, MA doctor who has publicly stated that she will not treat patients who are over 200 pounds. Dr. Helen Carter claims that several of her medical staff were injured treating larger patients and that she doesn’t want to see anyone who weighs more.

The story broke after one patient, who had actually come in for her second appointment had been sent home. Ida Davidson was very surprised when she came in for her follow-up appointment and was told, that she would no longer be accepted as a patient since she weighed over 200 lbs. Dr. Carter said she did not feel equipped to deal with Ida’s needs. She stated, “There’s an obesity center over at UMass that is much better staffed and has more resources than I do.”

Now first, let me state for the record, Dr. Carter’s decision is not illegal. Doctors can choose to take on patients or not take on patients as they see fit. But is it ethical? Is her response even logical? She refuses to provide any detail about the injuries to her staff workers from working with patients over 250 pounds. And really, it seems the vast majority of medical offices out there routinely handle patients of that size and much larger without any injuries to medical staff. One might question what these med techs were doing in a traditional doctor’s office to cause such problems. And to be frank, me thinks the doc doth protest too much. I’ve talked to a number of med techs who point out that the sort of routine care offered in a typical doctor’s office should not result in injuries to the staff of any kind, if the med techs were properly trained and following reasonable procedures.

While Dr. Carter may state that she is looking after her staff with this decision, I can’t help thinking that there are other motivations at work. Maybe Dr. Carter just doesn’t like fat people. Ida Davidson makes it clear that she felt outraged and humiliated about the way the whole thing was handled. She felt the doctor had engaged neither tact nor compassion, and I quote, “She didn’t care about my health that day. I think she just cared that I was a liability to her, maybe, and that I was too much work.”

But I also have to wonder if greed plays a part in Dr. Carter’s decision as well. Increasingly, doctors are seeing financial bonuses from insurance companies and medical groups for keeping their patients within certain metrics. In many cases, those metrics include BMI. So I have to wonder, is this decision really about protecting her staff or filling her bank account? And I also wonder, where will this end? Will doctors ultimately decide we are too expensive to treat? Will they stop seeing average-size or larger people at all? Will they only agree to treat people who they deem healthy and avoid those with expensive problems?

But perhaps most alarming to me is the question of whether or not fat people will be so humiliated and stigmatized by their doctors that they will stop going altogether. I’m far more frightened about the patients that Dr. Carter has turned away who are not brave enough to talk to CNN. What about the patients who simply internalize the shame, and don’t go to see the doctor at all any more. The Rudd Center has done a lot of work in documenting weight bias among medical professionals. It is real, and it has a profound effect on the health and well being of people of size. As the Rudd Center points out: people who are the victims of weight bias by medical professionals “are reluctant to seek medical care, cancel or delay medical appointments, and put off important preventative medical services.”

My dear Chicklettes. I have experienced weight bias from doctors in the past, and I have allowed it to keep me from going to the doctor. I have allowed myself to feel sad and worthless by men and women in white coats. I have suffered needlessly with medical conditions that would have been far less severe if I had gone to the doctor sooner. So learn from my mistakes. Make sure to find a doctor who treats you well. You deserve to be treated with respect. You deserve to receive competent, compassionate health care no matter what your size or shape or age or ability. Please remember you are not a liability. You are a unique and amazing person.

Love,

The Fat Chick

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