WHAT WE'RE ABOUT
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.
RBI supports all races, genders, classes, and sizes. We try our best to make this a safe space for everyone. If we are not doing our job or checking our privilege, we invite you to please inform us.
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We are not health professionals. Any and all advice provided on this blog is supported only by our own research, studies, and personal experiences; nothing more.
This blog is part of the Safe Space Network.
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.
I’m a young, short, blond haired, browned eyed girl. I have EDS type 3, and although many people will have never heard of it, it fucking hurts. I occasionally use crutches at home for the times where I can barely stand, but I do not use them outside yet (When I’m too sick I don’t even think about stepping out my front door.) But that isn’t even the start of what comes with my illness.
When you look at me, you can bet your sweet ass that I don’t look disabled, or whatever people think a disabled person should look like. Even people in the medical profession question me, but I know I’m in pain, you just can’t see it. Now, I’m not criticizing anyone for their preconceived notions of disabled people, since before I got sick, I was small minded and really had no idea that an invisible illness may have even existed.
The message I’m trying to put across here is; try to be a bit more open minded towards people in general. Don’t give that healthy looking guy a hard time for not giving up his seat on the bus, he may be in just as much pain and discomfort as someone fifty years older than him.
My response to a Facebook post by The Takeaway:
“A U.S. government-backed panel says doctors should tell patients if they’re obese. Have you been told this? How would you react?”