OMG, thank you for your heroic slog! How much coffee and how many anger-reducing interventions did it take to get through this?!? This “morbidly obese” (must be true, my PCP just wrote it on my summary this week) subscriber appreciates you!
Thank you! And to answer your question - so much of both (I don't actually like the taste of coffee but a barista recently introduced me to white coffee -doesn't taste like coffee, has more caffeine - and it definitely deserves a credit for this series!) I'm so incredibly sorry that your PCP isn't just using stigmatizing terms but also archaic, even more unscientific than usual stigmatizing terms. Triple UGH!
I haven’t heard this one before but please guide me to information if you have it. My endo wrote in my chart that I have “metabolic derangement.” As far as I can decipher using google it’s a euphemism for CICO.
Here is a useful distillation of some of the medical jargon in the Lancet Opinion Piece:
1. O is characterized by we think you look fat.
2. There are reasons for human physical diversity, probably.
4. PCO means we think you look fat but there’s nothing wrong with you
5. When fat people have health problems, it is associated with their health problems being blamed on their being fat.
9. Even if we have no evidence that your health problems are caused by your looking fat, we’ll still say they are, using this special weasely language.
11. No, seriously, really bad problems are caused by your looking fat. (Most people who don’t die by getting hit by a bus die of these sorts of things, but don’t be fooled, fat is always behind it.)
13. We don’t use bmi to determine if you’re fat. Using bmi doesn’t make us any money. And besides, why should we when we can tell by looking at you?
14. If we think you look fat, we will subject you to a lot of shaming and expensive tests, which will result in a diagnosis of yep, we knew it when we looked at you.
17. We were just kidding. We totally use bmi to decide if you look fat
30. Remember never to give fat ppl a moment to just engage in life as a person. Gotta saturate them with “you’re fatty mcfat and don’t ever forget it.”
#30, especially -- society doesn't want fat people to have much of anything that isn't tied to IWL and "getting healthy."
You will see what I mean if you scroll through comment sections of fat content creators' videos, be said videos about their weddings, clothing hauls or makeup tutorials, usually at least one person brings up the CCs size in some manner.
I have to remember to stop reading the comments on some videos because it's honestly just self-harm at this point...
Thank you, Ragen, for answering my previous question about bariatric surgery.
It's definitely not good for one's mental health to read some comment sections, that's for sure. I have a bit of an obsession with figuring out whether or not something is true and so, in order to reduce my bias, I will read the opposing side's arguments, but that often makes me feel even worse about myself in this context.
It's almost like a reflex at this point to look at the comment sections and so it's a habit I'm gonna have to break. It just kinda sucks knowing how people really feel about me as a fat person/fat people, even though most are polite to my face. I know that a lot of the people I see when out and about and interact with, some probably even family members, believe the stuff I've seen other people say and it hurts knowing they hate me/people like me and wish we didn't exist.
One more thing — casually throwing mental illness in there. You know where the biggest source of stress in my life is right now? Doctors. Are they going to focus on my weight and with what level of aggression. And then being relieved if they don’t. And dwelling on it for days/weeks if they do.
Do I find myself hoping that the destruction of the US health "care" system by the current government will at least lead to decreased payment for curing fat people of being ourselves? Why yes I do. Unfortunately, this structure that blames all medical conditions experienced by fat people on our fatness may simply refuse to treat us for anything. Which kinda happens anyway, as we are always sent away to lose weight before we are given access to treatments thinner people receive immediately.
You are such a gem. Again this was hard to read because of all of the weight stigma. Why is it so hard for doctors to understand??? The power of the purse is so mighty. And the power of diet culture.
Thanks for all the hard work. I was exhausted by the end of reading all 4 articles - I can only imagine your level of mental exhaustion trudging through all that crap.
Thank you, Ragen! This series has been a master class in how to intelligently evaluate research and claims based on research. If only the misguided morons involved in this misinformation were not … well … morons.
Name-calling aside — many, many, many thanks for this incredibly valuable deep dive into the cesspool of research on this.
OMG, thank you for your heroic slog! How much coffee and how many anger-reducing interventions did it take to get through this?!? This “morbidly obese” (must be true, my PCP just wrote it on my summary this week) subscriber appreciates you!
Thank you! And to answer your question - so much of both (I don't actually like the taste of coffee but a barista recently introduced me to white coffee -doesn't taste like coffee, has more caffeine - and it definitely deserves a credit for this series!) I'm so incredibly sorry that your PCP isn't just using stigmatizing terms but also archaic, even more unscientific than usual stigmatizing terms. Triple UGH!
I haven’t heard this one before but please guide me to information if you have it. My endo wrote in my chart that I have “metabolic derangement.” As far as I can decipher using google it’s a euphemism for CICO.
Dead yet? For fucks' sake. I also love "due to excess calories." Because that must be it, right?
Here is a useful distillation of some of the medical jargon in the Lancet Opinion Piece:
1. O is characterized by we think you look fat.
2. There are reasons for human physical diversity, probably.
4. PCO means we think you look fat but there’s nothing wrong with you
5. When fat people have health problems, it is associated with their health problems being blamed on their being fat.
9. Even if we have no evidence that your health problems are caused by your looking fat, we’ll still say they are, using this special weasely language.
11. No, seriously, really bad problems are caused by your looking fat. (Most people who don’t die by getting hit by a bus die of these sorts of things, but don’t be fooled, fat is always behind it.)
13. We don’t use bmi to determine if you’re fat. Using bmi doesn’t make us any money. And besides, why should we when we can tell by looking at you?
14. If we think you look fat, we will subject you to a lot of shaming and expensive tests, which will result in a diagnosis of yep, we knew it when we looked at you.
17. We were just kidding. We totally use bmi to decide if you look fat
30. Remember never to give fat ppl a moment to just engage in life as a person. Gotta saturate them with “you’re fatty mcfat and don’t ever forget it.”
#30, especially -- society doesn't want fat people to have much of anything that isn't tied to IWL and "getting healthy."
You will see what I mean if you scroll through comment sections of fat content creators' videos, be said videos about their weddings, clothing hauls or makeup tutorials, usually at least one person brings up the CCs size in some manner.
I have to remember to stop reading the comments on some videos because it's honestly just self-harm at this point...
Reading such comments is definitely equivalent to exposing yourself to dangerous toxins.
Thank you, Ragen, for answering my previous question about bariatric surgery.
It's definitely not good for one's mental health to read some comment sections, that's for sure. I have a bit of an obsession with figuring out whether or not something is true and so, in order to reduce my bias, I will read the opposing side's arguments, but that often makes me feel even worse about myself in this context.
It's almost like a reflex at this point to look at the comment sections and so it's a habit I'm gonna have to break. It just kinda sucks knowing how people really feel about me as a fat person/fat people, even though most are polite to my face. I know that a lot of the people I see when out and about and interact with, some probably even family members, believe the stuff I've seen other people say and it hurts knowing they hate me/people like me and wish we didn't exist.
This is spot on.
One more thing — casually throwing mental illness in there. You know where the biggest source of stress in my life is right now? Doctors. Are they going to focus on my weight and with what level of aggression. And then being relieved if they don’t. And dwelling on it for days/weeks if they do.
Do I find myself hoping that the destruction of the US health "care" system by the current government will at least lead to decreased payment for curing fat people of being ourselves? Why yes I do. Unfortunately, this structure that blames all medical conditions experienced by fat people on our fatness may simply refuse to treat us for anything. Which kinda happens anyway, as we are always sent away to lose weight before we are given access to treatments thinner people receive immediately.
I love your sarcasm!
Thanks, I definitely got a little bit more sarcastic as this went on!
You are such a gem. Again this was hard to read because of all of the weight stigma. Why is it so hard for doctors to understand??? The power of the purse is so mighty. And the power of diet culture.
Thanks for all the hard work. I was exhausted by the end of reading all 4 articles - I can only imagine your level of mental exhaustion trudging through all that crap.
Thank you, Ragen! This series has been a master class in how to intelligently evaluate research and claims based on research. If only the misguided morons involved in this misinformation were not … well … morons.
Name-calling aside — many, many, many thanks for this incredibly valuable deep dive into the cesspool of research on this.
Thank you so much!
Thank you! And hard agree -it is absolutely an embarrassment.