What To Do When Weight Stigma Makes You Want To Avoid The Doctor
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Recently during Q&A after a talk about how to deal with weight stigma at the doctor’s office, one of the participants asked if I had any ideas for what to do when they were so sick of experiencing fatphobia from healthcare providers that they just wanted to not go.
This is, unfortunately, a too-common situation. Research tells us that implicit and explicit weight stigma and bias are rampant among healthcare practitioners and that experiencing weight stigma can cause higher-weight people to disengage from healthcare. This can be because they don’t want to experience body shaming, it can also be because in their experience no matter what they present with, they are told to eat less and exercise more (typically by a practitioner who has no information about how much they eat or exercise) or given diet advice that is some combination of useless and laughable, and then shown the door.
Going to the doctor can be difficult under any circumstances – requiring things like transportation, time off work, childcare, and the ability to pay for the appointment and any treatment that is recommended. The difficulties increase for people of the highest weights and those who are multiply marginalized. So when someone has repeatedly experienced doing all that just to have a doctor ignore their concerns and tell them to eat fewer snacks, it’s not surprising they decide it just isn’t worth it.
And that’s not taking into account the toll on mental health that it takes to be stereotyped, shamed, and ignored by someone who has your health in their hands. This leads fat people to get less care, including preventative care, like cancer screenings. (Adding insult to literal injury, when higher-weight people present with more advanced health issues their body size – rather than the lack of preventative care – is often blamed.)
This is all to say that if you’re fighting the urge to just skip the doctor altogether, I get it, and I’ve been there. Understanding that you get to choose whether or not to go, here are some thoughts/techniques that can help if you want to go to the doctor but are struggling to make it happen, with the caveat that privilege is something that always comes into play.
Get angry
This one is my personal go to. We absolutely shouldn’t have to deal with weight stigma, including and especially from healthcare providers, but even though it isn’t our fault it becomes our problem. To make matters worse, if weight stigma keeps us from seeking care, we are the ones who get hurt. So, I decide that I’m not going to let weight stigma stop me from getting healthcare and I tell myself that I’m going to do whatever I can to get the care I deserve.
Be there for your body
I like to think of me and my body as a team. There are certainly people who see themselves and their body as an integrated whole and of course that’s completely valid as well! For me, I realized a long time ago I that I treated my friends a lot better than I treated my own body, which led to me conceptualizing my body as a friend. If a friend of mine was being mistreated by a doctor and needed my help, I would not stop until they got the care that they needed. So, I think of my body the same way - the healthcare system is mistreating my body and I am going to be there for my body and not stop until my body gets the care she deserves.
Bring an advocate
It doesn’t have to be a professional advocate, bringing anyone along increases your chances of being treated better by a healthcare practitioner. Chat with them beforehand so that you both understand what you want their role to be in the process (from just being there for support to speaking up on your behalf.)
Practice
It can help to be prepared for what might happen and how to deal with it. Practicing is a major part of that – whether you’re role-playing with someone else or working alone, imagine what it will be like – how will it look, sound, smell, how will you feel when you are at the doctor’s office? Then practice what you will say out loud, that way when it’s happening in real time, you’ll be ready.
Always remember that this shouldn’t be happening to you – you deserve excellent healthcare without weight stigma. If you aren’t getting that it becomes your problem, but it’s absolutely not your fault.
If you’re looking for more support, tricks, and techniques, I have written quick-guide to talking with doctors here, as well as a full video workshop (with a pay-what-you-can-afford option) here.
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More research and resources:
https://haeshealthsheets.com/resources/
*Note on language: I use “fat” as a neutral descriptor as used by the fat activist community, I use “ob*se” and “overw*ight” to acknowledge that these are terms that were created to medicalize and pathologize fat bodies, with roots in racism and specifically anti-Blackness. Please read Sabrina Strings’ Fearing the Black Body – the Racial Origins of Fat Phobia and Da’Shaun Harrison’s Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness for more on this.