This is the Weight and Healthcare newsletter! If you appreciate the content here, please consider supporting the newsletter by subscribing and/or sharing! A tweet from a PhD Psychologist was brought to my attention. With thanks to those who pointed it out to me, I’ll start by saying that I’m not going to name the person because I don’t want to give them any traffic and they are certainly not the only person in their position to make this mistake, so while I’ll address these tweets specifically, understand that my answers are meant to apply broadly.
Also on display here is the paternalistic aspect of stigma. We fat people must need a thin savior to provide us "positive encouragement" because we don't know any better. They expect us to have the reaction of "I've never heard this information kind thin person, please tell me more!" and won't tolerate anything else.
It's particularly pernicious at the doctor's office. I've actually had my doctor ask me if I've heard of My Fitness Pal. They'll prescribe us page one of Google and then wonder with a straight face why we don't engage with Healthcare. (Setting aside the many, many other reasons we don't engage with healthcare.)
They're so deep into stigma they can't even do us the courtesy of assuming we live in the world.
A while back, I read the following bullshit post by Dr. Jen Gunter. I wanted to share it with you and this group, but wasn’t sure the best way to do that. It’s related to your current post, insofar as it’s another well- known “authority” committing fat-shaming in the guise of telling it like it is. Please consider addressing it in a separate post...we fat-shamed post- menopausal types are legion. (I apologize for commandeering this one.) Thanks! https://open.substack.com/pub/vajenda/p/menopause-and-weight-there-is-no?r=9brga&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Yes! That post was such a bummer. And it was incredibly lame how she sidestepped the critical comments. She prides herself on being confrontational so it was very interesting how she didn’t have anything to say.
Yup. She just ignored those comments. Which, come to think of it, makes sense because she basically ignored fat, post-menopausal people altogether. No excuse for us, we’re just undisciplined and unhealthy.
I almost paid for a subscription to comment on that post. I’m glad I didn’t bc I don’t want to contribute to her, but I noticed she was active and engaged in the comments...except with those that called out her fatphobia and privilege. It was so upsetting from someone I’ve trusted to be straightforward about women’s issues (where there is so much grift and misinformation).
I’ve always found Dr. Jen to be extremely toxic and I don’t get why she has such a following… everything she does and says has such a VIBE to it. Basically if she, a thin white woman of enormous privilege, says a thing, that thing must be true, with no nuance or exception.
Anyway, yeah… I’ve been fat my whole life, but I also have lipedema, which wasn’t a big deal until I had a hysterectomy, and then things accelerated QUICKLY. Now it’s seemingly impossible to get healthcare because everything is blamed on my weight… oh, and clearly I’m just sad and lazy because I am an old crone now.
This is like one of those logic bits you'd get in your philosophy hw in college of what a person's statements are really saying 😂 so if (1) you are not 'fat-enabling' but (2) are for 'eating healthy, etc.', are you not implying that fat folks do not do these things already and therefore you are doing the very thing ('fat shaming') that you say you're not for?! 😂 Please, please come walk a day in my shoes and see how hard I try to be healthy, so that ppl close to me often state "it's not fair what you face, you do so much more than me to be healthy." Stare into the perplexed face of my doctors when I inexplicably gain weight and lose hair despite increasing my activity and eating healthy! 😂 Health is not an achievable goal for many of us bc *conditions* and you cannot assess fat people's health from their fat-status anyways 🤷🏼♀️
As this doctor has publicly tweeted this, I think you should include their name as well so that fat people will recognise their name and not have to dig themselves to find out how fatmisic and pro-fat-shaming this doctor is, and choose whether to try to stay clear of them or not. This doctor has chosen to publicly publish their take, and fat people deserve better, and they deserve to know how shitty many doctors are choosing to be online.
All you have to do is google the first line in quotes, and you will find the guy! He definitely has that celebrity psychologist vibe from what I can see on his website, which makes me mistrust him immediately.
I love when you dissect a really bad take like this. It always makes my day.
If I were a gambler, I’d wager that they were trying to coin the phrase “fat enabler.”
Also what a bunch of bullshit. FAT ENABLING.
If we take it literally, she’s actually saying that she doesn’t want to enable the existence of fat people.
Which is some really gross eugenics, when you get right down to it.
Also on display here is the paternalistic aspect of stigma. We fat people must need a thin savior to provide us "positive encouragement" because we don't know any better. They expect us to have the reaction of "I've never heard this information kind thin person, please tell me more!" and won't tolerate anything else.
It's particularly pernicious at the doctor's office. I've actually had my doctor ask me if I've heard of My Fitness Pal. They'll prescribe us page one of Google and then wonder with a straight face why we don't engage with Healthcare. (Setting aside the many, many other reasons we don't engage with healthcare.)
They're so deep into stigma they can't even do us the courtesy of assuming we live in the world.
Well said! 👏👏👏
A while back, I read the following bullshit post by Dr. Jen Gunter. I wanted to share it with you and this group, but wasn’t sure the best way to do that. It’s related to your current post, insofar as it’s another well- known “authority” committing fat-shaming in the guise of telling it like it is. Please consider addressing it in a separate post...we fat-shamed post- menopausal types are legion. (I apologize for commandeering this one.) Thanks! https://open.substack.com/pub/vajenda/p/menopause-and-weight-there-is-no?r=9brga&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Thanks Connie, this post is a mess! I have it on my list to write about (though it's a long list, so thank you in advance for your patience!)
Yes! That post was such a bummer. And it was incredibly lame how she sidestepped the critical comments. She prides herself on being confrontational so it was very interesting how she didn’t have anything to say.
Yup. She just ignored those comments. Which, come to think of it, makes sense because she basically ignored fat, post-menopausal people altogether. No excuse for us, we’re just undisciplined and unhealthy.
I almost paid for a subscription to comment on that post. I’m glad I didn’t bc I don’t want to contribute to her, but I noticed she was active and engaged in the comments...except with those that called out her fatphobia and privilege. It was so upsetting from someone I’ve trusted to be straightforward about women’s issues (where there is so much grift and misinformation).
I’ve always found Dr. Jen to be extremely toxic and I don’t get why she has such a following… everything she does and says has such a VIBE to it. Basically if she, a thin white woman of enormous privilege, says a thing, that thing must be true, with no nuance or exception.
Anyway, yeah… I’ve been fat my whole life, but I also have lipedema, which wasn’t a big deal until I had a hysterectomy, and then things accelerated QUICKLY. Now it’s seemingly impossible to get healthcare because everything is blamed on my weight… oh, and clearly I’m just sad and lazy because I am an old crone now.
This is like one of those logic bits you'd get in your philosophy hw in college of what a person's statements are really saying 😂 so if (1) you are not 'fat-enabling' but (2) are for 'eating healthy, etc.', are you not implying that fat folks do not do these things already and therefore you are doing the very thing ('fat shaming') that you say you're not for?! 😂 Please, please come walk a day in my shoes and see how hard I try to be healthy, so that ppl close to me often state "it's not fair what you face, you do so much more than me to be healthy." Stare into the perplexed face of my doctors when I inexplicably gain weight and lose hair despite increasing my activity and eating healthy! 😂 Health is not an achievable goal for many of us bc *conditions* and you cannot assess fat people's health from their fat-status anyways 🤷🏼♀️
As this doctor has publicly tweeted this, I think you should include their name as well so that fat people will recognise their name and not have to dig themselves to find out how fatmisic and pro-fat-shaming this doctor is, and choose whether to try to stay clear of them or not. This doctor has chosen to publicly publish their take, and fat people deserve better, and they deserve to know how shitty many doctors are choosing to be online.
All you have to do is google the first line in quotes, and you will find the guy! He definitely has that celebrity psychologist vibe from what I can see on his website, which makes me mistrust him immediately.
Yes, I agree. I’d love to know who said this.
Again- your insightful (and inciteful :) ) take on fat shaming bullshit is brilliant.
TY!