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We are constantly redefining our own perspectives, and therefore tend to write a lot about our personal experiences. Many followers and contributors are living with anorexia, bulimia, body dysmorphic disorder, depression, and a variety of other body image disorders or mental illnesses, so please be respectful and remember that health applies differently to everyone. Any and all potentially triggering content will be prefaced with a trigger warning.
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“27 and healthy” should mean just that - But it often doesn’t, when one is fat. Shit is fucked.
Let us be clear about something. Medical equipment that cannot accommodate fat bodies does not have to be that way. Fat bodies are not some divine mystery that human science cannot fathom. If the health care establishment cared to accommodate fat bodies, then fat bodies would be accommodated. It really is that simple. An medical industrial complex that denies access to fat bodies is not a natural phenomenon. It is a choice. And we should damn well respond to as such. A lot of oppression and marginalization tries to pass itself off as just how things are. Just something we have to accept. Bullshit. These things are choices. They are decisions. They are priorities revealed.
Case in point? Once it was “understood” that fat people cannot be anesthetized. Hell, a lot of doctors still think that today and I gather a lot of anesthesiologists are still allowed to not know how to treat fat patients. But when the health care establishment thought up the various organ mutilation and amputations marketed as weight loss surgery, you will not be surprised they figured out how to put a fat person under very quickly. Because it was never impossible. Just something they didn’t care to learn. Same as why they direct most research to be performed on white male patients. Because they don’t care to learn how things might effect women or people of color differently. They made the choice. Don’t let them pretend they didn’t.
[TW: eating disorders, suicide]
Dear Doctor-I-Went-To-When-I-Was-a-Teenager,
I came to you because I was getting a yearly physical for the upcoming season of cheerleading I had ahead of me. You asked what sorts of things I did with the squad with a weird look on your face, and I told you that I do what cheerleaders do: I cheer, I jump, I use my voice a lot, too! For some reason, you didn’t believe me. You still had that weird look on your face.
You continued on to tell me that my weight was out of the range for my age, height, and sex. You continued on to tell me that by the time that I was in my early 20s, I’d be so fat that I wouldn’t be able to move. You continued on to tell me that I would gain 50-100 pounds a year if I continued my ‘habits’. You told me that I would die. I thought this was weird because you were a woman, and you weren’t thin like people on tv. I didn’t understand why you were saying these things to me. I cried. I was roughly 200 pounds.
Then, you went on to ask me about my sexual experiences and you didn’t believe me when I told you that I’d never had sex. I told you that my periods were uncomfortable, heavy, and annoying—like any teenage girl would say. You told me that the best thing to do would be to give me a pap, right there. I felt violated by the simple thought of it, I didn’t know anything about pap smears, no one had ever touched me there, I was terrified. I cried. I wanted my mom.
You calmed me down as much as you could, and then went on with getting my blood pressure and blood work. I was confused as to why you were just now doing these things, after you’d told me how unhealthy I was already. You had a surprised look on your face when I was in the normal “healthy” range for my blood pressure, yet you still told me that I was unhealthy based on the measurement that the scale took of me. I was an active girl. I was a cheerleader which meant I had practice about twice a week and then two games on the weekends. You said the blood-work would most likely show a thyroid condition, and that would be an explanation for my weight problem. You told me that once we got that fixed, I’d be thin. (I have no thyroid problem)
I left your office that day feeling horrible. I felt like I had somehow lied to you, that you were a doctor and you knew what was best and maybe I just didn’t realize what I’d been doing all my life. Maybe I did have sex with someone and I didn’t know it. Hell, maybe my diet did need some work— and it did, but I didn’t know what healthy was because no one taught me. To me, healthy was being happy and loving the people around me and grasping onto them with all that I had. To me, comfort was food because when my dad died people gave us food. To me, comfort was food because when my sister died people gave us food. I was happy sometimes, sometimes my OCD roared its ugly head up. It had been a few years since my last bout of eating practically nothing in order to lose weight, and I thought I’d gotten better because I could eat again without feeling like I was going to throw up. I thought I’d gotten better because I didn’t need the anti-nausea medication anymore. I thought I’d gotten better because I didn’t want to kill myself anymore.
I left your office that day feeling ashamed of myself. I was a smart girl, I got good grades, people loved me, but I was fat. How could I have done that to myself? I walked out to my mother who was in the waiting room and told her we were leaving. I was starting to tear up again, and my mom put her hand on my shoulder and we left. We walked out of your office. I couldn’t tell my mom everything, but I told her some of what you said. I felt stupid, I cried the whole way home. To this day, I’ve probably been to the doctor a handful of times since this instance. You made me want to stay clear of doctors, you made me terrified of doctors, which in turn made me less healthy. I’m still terrified of going to the doctor and what they might say to me. Luckily, I never get sick.
Little did you know, I went on to have more intense disordered eating. I counted every last calorie I ate—including gum, I got an estimate for how many calories my body burned by just existing, and I worked my hardest to make it so that I would be burning so many calories each day to lose a pound in two days. I still ate crappy foods, but counted them into my calories. I worked out, I had a personal trainer at the gym that I worked at, and if I didn’t work out one day, I just wouldn’t eat anything. I didn’t know what healthy was, I just knew that I needed to be thin.
If it wasn’t for you, I probably wouldn’t be roughly 300 pounds today. Your shame against my body made me hate my body the way you hated my body, and I treated it terribly. I tried counting calories, I did Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers, I even fainted at a cheerleading practice because of how unhealthy I was. But you know what? I was still fat. I still never got below 200 pounds. I had this dream number, you know? I so badly wanted to be 160 pounds. I had a journal online that was dedicated to tracking my calorie intake and outtake, and I was in a community with other people who wanted to lose weight by any means possible. This group was an anorexia group. I figured they knew how to do it because they were the thin ones. But I got confused when I was doing the same things that they were and I still looked like me.
Food has been a constant friend to me, even when it was the enemy. It was something I feared, something I yearned for, something I could have when I was skinny. Now, I sometimes still go a day without eating and remember how happy I used to be when I felt the hunger growling up inside me. Now, I sometimes binge eat, because I don’t know what the feeling of full is because of how fucked up my eating habits have been in my lifetime. I can blog day in and day out, I can do research on fat/body politics, I can read Health at Every Size cover to cover and go on websites dedicated to it, and I still have disordered eating. You are one of the reasons. I hope you’re happy.
I’m still alive. I’m at the peak of my life, and it’s only getting better. If it wasn’t for people like you, I wouldn’t be researching what I’m researching, I wouldn’t be going to grad school, I wouldn’t be talking about body-positivity, I wouldn’t have gotten to lecture in classes at my college, I wouldn’t have gotten to do anything that I’m doing right now. I am the person I am today because of people like you.
Instead of telling your patients how terrible they are and how they’re going to die (which is a lie), tell them how to be healthier. Tell them that being active can be fun, not a chore and not only to lose weight. Tell them that fad diets don’t work. Put the energy of love into your patients, not hate. You don’t care about something that you hate.
xo Cortnie
Still, the inescapable fact is that a guy likes to look at a naked woman. Period. Doctors are no different. They like to look at naked women, too. So, if they get PAID to look–I mean, really LOOK–at a woman’s sexual organs, and even better, they get to touch them, well… So much the better!
Just vomited in my mouth.
I’m not saying that doctors do exams just to get a sexual thrill, because the circumstances really don’t allow a full-out sexual experience
NOT BECAUSE IT’S HIGHLY DISTURBING AND INAPPROPRIATE AND A VIOLATION OF THE TRUST A WOMAN MIGHT PUT IN A DOCTOR, JUST ‘CUZ CIRCUMSTANCES DON’T ALLOW FOR IT. FUCKING DIE.
but deep down, they ARE men, after all.
Aw yeah, so true, your cock validates all things.
This is so vom-inducing, I can’t even…
[Sassy boy on crutches wearing a shirt that reads “SORRY MIND CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE”]
Fourteen-year-old Kaleb Provis had to undergo emergency surgery because of an infection in his knee after a doctor initially told him the pain was possibly caused by his “morbid obesity”.
The infection could have been cured with antibiotics if picked up earlier.
“If it wasn’t treated a nurse said his bones would start breaking,” his mother said
Fatness has dangerous implications for your health because of doctors’ fat discrimination.
Fat does not mean unhealthy.
Deaths and illnesses are ‘caused by obesity’. Just not how they tell us.
I see so many people talking down to fat people about ‘stop trying to lie and say obesity is healthy’ yada yada.
Ok. Fine. I won’t talk about that. Because that shit doesn’t matter in the end.
Why aren’t we talking about the fact that doctors are disrespecting patients with their anti-fat…
Asked Anonymous
Recommending “Lifestyle changes” is NOT the same thing as recommending weight-loss, although often the two are incorrectly conflated. Of course doctors should talk to their patients about diet, exercise, getting enough sleep etc, but we need to disconnect those concepts from weight loss. Because the fact of the matter is, NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO MAKE A FAT PERSON PERMANENTLY THIN. There hasn’t been any statistically significant study of a weight-loss plan that is successful for the majority of people in the long term.
So even if it IS possible that weight loss will mitigate some correlations with certain diseases, it is unlikely to be an effective strategy in the long-term. If someone has diabetes, or lactose intolerance, or a gluten allergy of course their doctors should help them change their diets or “lifestyles” to be healthier, but pretending those changes will result in weight loss, or having a weight loss goal as a place holder for health, is actually counter-productive to the health goal. It is perfectly possible for a diabetic person to change their diet to be completely healthy without losing weight, and I maintain that those changes would be easier if the focus is on health and NOT on weight.
You know I also think it is important to note that this ask was a response to a post about weight discrimination when visiting the doctor. The way this question frames the conversation and how anon digested that post is a good example of how we are socialized with fat phobia thinking. No where did that post say a doctor shouldn’t form a partnership with their fat patient to improve their health. What it did say was fat people have the right to go to the doctor and not have weight loss be treated as the be all and end all of medical care. What it said was that fat people have the right to medical treatment that looks at things other than their fatness.
The fact that anon connects those statements to pushing a specific “lifestyle” is fat prejudice in action.
4 years ago, my 400 pound father was told that he could not have the knee replacement surgery that he badly needed unless he got gastric bypass surgery and lost weight. A year later, he had gbs, lost enough weight to please his knee surgeon, and got his knees replaced. Last May, he died from complications from his gastric bypass surgery. Are joint health and being thin really more important than being alive?
(mod note: I am so, so sorry for your loss. -ATL)
I am very privileged, for a fat person. I had what I am forced to call a privileged upbringing. My parents never abused me. They never forced me to diet. They never shamed me for my size. They both had been fat at various times in their lives, and they knew how damaging that kind of abuse was, and they always taught me that external things truly don’t matter.
The supreme irony of this is that if they had had trouble conceiving, they would never have been allowed to have children because they are fat. Just as I can’t have children. I’m too fat for IVF. I’m too fat to adopt.
My thin aunt and uncle easily adopted two kids that they then abused and raised into racist and fat-hating murderers. (I’m not exaggerating. My cousins both have killed people.)
But simply because I am fat, regardless of the great parenting I received and the great parenting I would have to offer, I will probably never have kids. That is thin privilege. Having the government decide whether you will be a good or bad parent, based entirely on your dress size.
Thin privilege is going to the doctor to get help for the suicidal thoughts and feelings you’ve been having and not having the doctor sit and shame you for being fat for twenty minutes before giving you a prescription for the same pills you were on last time you attempted suicide- all without so much as a glance at your charts.
Thin privilege is not being told that your depression/bipolar/BPD is all related to your weight and if you lost it you’d be a sane, normal person.
OH MY GOD
OH MY FUCKING GOD I AM SEETHING
Whoever submitted this…I hope you are okay and can find better help. Please do. Not all psychiatrists are fatphobic fartweasels.
I writing in regards to a couple of things. The first being a post about thin privilege and the poster thinking that there is no such thing. As someone that has been fat my whole life and gotten nothing but shit about it I can tell you that thin privilege is very much so a thing.
First let me ask, how many weight loss commercials do you see a day, claiming to want to help you and that thin is the only and right way to be? How many articles, news clips, etc, do you see going on and on about fat being unhealthy, shaming fat people, calling us an epidemic, etc.
Now on the other side of the spectrum, how many commercials and news articles do you see about help, programs and shamming for underweight people and those who have problem with anorexia, bulimia, or any other eat disorder? Our society in fact glorifies it and if you think I’m wrong just take a look in any magazine today filled with girls who knowingly starve themselves to keep there figure.
Society is always so ready to be vocal and put in their two cents about fat people but when it come to the other side of things everyone is hush, hush. I (being a fat person) have been refused food and had things taken away from me because I “didn’t need it”. How many times have any you have someone shove food and your face and told to eat because the person thought you need it?
I’m going to share a couple of stories because I think they are very relevant and can explain that thin privilege does happen better. The first being my very first trip to the obgyn.
I was already nervous because it was my first time there and on top of that I was having issues with my menstrual. When I see the doctor he would not even look me in the face. He acted like he wanted nothing to do with me and was very rude and mean spirited with everything he said and did.
At the end of the appointment he did give me a real explanation for my problem and just ended up saying, “we both know that as big as you are that this is the reason you’re having problems, you’re huge, and we probably don’t need to run test because that’s it. lose the weight and you’ll stop having problems. Stop eating fast food everyday, don’t drink soda, no sweets, and start working out, it’s that simple. I myself had a salad for lunch today.”
When I explained to him that I very rarely eat fast food, soda, and don’t do sweets everyday he just gave me a “I don’t believe you” He prescribed me pills, quickly explaining what they were and how they work, just told me to take them, and I left almost in tears.It was a terrible experience. I did ending up losing some weight thinking that even though he was an ass he was the doctor so I should take his advice. When I came back for the follow up, my test all came back fine. My blood pressure was normal, cholesterol, blood work came back clean and he just told me to keep taking the pills that were supposed to get my cycle back on track. It didn’t and I ended up switching to a different obgyn at a different office.
When I told her my situation she was upset about my last doctors demenor towards me and was surprised when I told her that I was still taking these pills, because supposedly they are usually not prescribed for more that 4 months and that’s why things had not improved, and he probably just wanted me out of his hair as quickly as possible. She then explained that my weight COULD be the issue but that millions of women of all sizes have frantic irregular cycles and it’s really not all that uncommon. She had me stop taking the pills the last doctor has prescribed and put me on birth control for a while. Even after I stopped taking the birth control it has been almost 9 months I am not that much smaller(weight wise) than I was when this began and I have had no problems with my menstrual. I have talked with numerous friends about my experience and all of them(including my thin friends) have pretty much said the same thing. That he didn’t want to deal with me because I am fat. Please tell as a thin person if you have ever had this kind of situation happened because of your thinness, so I can stand corrected.
[TRIGGER WARNING:MENTIONS EATING DISORDER]
Second story: My younger sister when though a time where she was struggling with an eating disorder and was losing a great deal of weight though she was already pretty thin for her height. I and my other sister had mentioned this to our parents and they just passed it off as she is just losing baby fat, she fine, she looks better this thing anyway. It was not until she lost enough weight from not eating that you could see bones sticking out that they finally intervened.
But with me (and I’ve been big my whole life) they have not once in my life hesitated to hound and shame me for being fat. Telling me what I couldn’t eat and that I should just stop eating, forcing me to go to the gym, telling what was and was not okay for me to wear as a big person, telling me that I will always be made of and that no one would want me. And that they were not saying these things to be harsh but to give me “motivation” to lose weight because they were “worried” about my health. And the times that I would try to tell that I can actually be okay with who I am they retort with “you shouldn’t be”. I’ve had people all my life even if they haven’t known me for very long yet, mention to me about how my family treats me so differently than the rest of my brothers and sisters.
That facts are, thin privilege is alive and well. Everyone will try to pass it off as wanting to help you for your health but the truth is out world is vain. We live in a place where so many have been brainwashed to think that thin is they only way to be healthy and thin is the only beautiful. and that is a very sad thing.
I’ve always been chubby. Always.
When I was about seven, I started getting these episodes where my heart would race and I would get light headed and even faint. My mom would call the pediatrician and he’d tell us to come in, but by the time we got there my heart had slowed down and, according to him, he had no way to check what it was.
He advised my mom to put me on a healthier diet and make me exercise more because it was probably my weight, even though I wasn’t that much overweight and I practiced softball for an hour a day.
So my mom did as he said and I didn’t really lose any weight. Also, the episodes continued to happen. They always ended before we could get to the doctor’s office. The doctor never ordered any kind of tests on my heart, though he did test my thyroid and scold my mom for apparently not trying hard enough to get me to lose weight.
This went on for five years. I’d be laying in bed and suddenly my heart would start beating so hard, my shirt would move. I’d stand up out of the bathtub and black out, causing me to fall out of the tub. I’d be playing softball or in gym class or just playing with my friends and suddenly I’d get light headed or my heart would race.
There would be several fruitless calls or visits to my doctor, who would insist that it was complications due to my weight and they would continue until I was a normal size. My mom was scolded. I was body shamed. I had blood drawn twice a year to test my thyroid. And yet the episodes continued.
Then, the week of my 12th birthday—also, the week I started my very first period— I didn’t want to go to school because the day before, a girl who had seen me in the bathroom had told everybody that I had started my period. In 6th grade, being chubby with frizzy hair and huge teeth, that was pretty much a social death sentence and I was mocked mercilessly for it.
So the next morning I woke up and begged my mom not to let me go to school. I cried and begged and she still insisted I go. So I went to change when suddenly, I felt an attack hit and I blacked out and fell, knocking things off of my desk. My mother heard the noise and found me dazed on the floor. I told her I could feel my heart beating hard again. You could see my shirt moving over my chest from how hard and fast my heart was beating.
My mom loaded me up in the car and took me to the pediatrician. This time, my heart continued to race and I remained light headed. They had to bring out a wheel chair to get me into the doctors office because I was too dizzy and weak to walk.
Once there, I was ushered into an examination room and I just laid down on the table. I couldn’t even sit up. They took my blood pressure and of course it was high, but they took it as a sign that my mother was feeding me salty, fatty foods instead of fruits and vegetables. they made me wait on the table for like two hours until an EKG machine was available in the office. I fell asleep for like half an hour because I was EXHAUSTED. Eventually, they sent us to the ER.
At the ER, they ushered me into a small little room with an EKG machine. They hooked it up and like fifteen seconds later, the nurse flipped shit. She called a “code blue” and about fifteen nurses rushed into this tiny room and then they raced me to another part of the ER. Didn’t tell my mom what was going on, just left her there and took off with me in the bed. They hooked me up to a ton of IVs and monitors and gave me medication to slow my heart that caused me to vomit everywhere.
Then they did a bunch of x-rays and EKG tests and kept me overnight. They found out that I had WPW, which is a tiny hole in the walls of the chambers of the heart, which caused my heart to beat so rapidly. They explained to my parents that this hadn’t happened as an effect of diet or habit, but that I had been born with this hole.
They also told her that me playing softball and being active with this condition was incredibly dangerous, because this is the condition that causes athletes to die on the field for seemingly no reason. The heart starts beating fast through exertion, the signals that cause the heart to beat get all scrambled and the heart beats so fast that it just gives out.
And the reason this particular attack had lasted so long was because it had come dangerously close to causing my heart to give out, which would have killed me. I ended up having to have heart surgery, something that should have been done 5 years earlier when I first started having the attacks.
But, because I was overweight, my doctor was more concerned with thinning me down than providing me with the treatment I needed to live a healthy life.
I’m so sorry that happened to you. Folks, please reblog; this deserves more notes.
Fucking. Read it.
Thin privilege is being able to go to the eye doctor and not being told to lose weight to see better.
WUT
“OH NOEZ I CAN’T SEE MY FATNESS IS MAKING ME BLIND HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN”
does not compute.