This is the Weight and Healthcare newsletter! If you like what you are reading, please consider subscribing and/or sharing! Research and lived experience tell us that a large number of healthcare practitioners harbor bias against fat* patients. Unfortunately sometimes this bias is explicit - these practitioners are aware of (and, in some cases seem quite proud of) their stereotypes of, and biases against, their fat patients. They feel that they are justified and they wield them like a weapon against these patients. This is a life and death issue that compromises the healthcare of many fat patients. It is not, however, what today’s piece is about.
I was once getting dental work done, and the dentist and her assistant engaged extensively in diet talk with each other while they worked on me. Like “oh I’m so bad, I gained 5 lbs over the holidays!” “I’m so sinful for eating dessert!” That kind of crap. I know there are worse problems, but ugh! Maybe don’t do this in front of your patients if you’re a HCP. You have no idea what kind of harm you might be doing to them.
This is is so good! I have one to add which may be a rephrase of one of yours:
Am I delaying treatment for this patient (by recommending weight loss), when I would feel a sense of urgency if a thinner patient had the same signs and symptoms?
If a thinner patient’s symptoms signal something serious may be going on (or needed to be evaluated quickly to prevent disability or death), but a doctor expects a higher weight person to lose weight before a conducting the same differential diagnosis, this is not a doctor I can trust with my life.
I was once getting dental work done, and the dentist and her assistant engaged extensively in diet talk with each other while they worked on me. Like “oh I’m so bad, I gained 5 lbs over the holidays!” “I’m so sinful for eating dessert!” That kind of crap. I know there are worse problems, but ugh! Maybe don’t do this in front of your patients if you’re a HCP. You have no idea what kind of harm you might be doing to them.
This is is so good! I have one to add which may be a rephrase of one of yours:
Am I delaying treatment for this patient (by recommending weight loss), when I would feel a sense of urgency if a thinner patient had the same signs and symptoms?
If a thinner patient’s symptoms signal something serious may be going on (or needed to be evaluated quickly to prevent disability or death), but a doctor expects a higher weight person to lose weight before a conducting the same differential diagnosis, this is not a doctor I can trust with my life.