'Every doctor I saw looked past me. They did not ask about my diet or exercise. Instead, my body spoke on my behalf, proof positive of my assumed irresponsibility and neglect.'
with a sample of 2,449 adult women characterized as overweight or obese, 69 percent of them reported experiencing weight stigma from a doctor. The proliferation of essays and anecdotes detailing our personal shame and embarrassment at the hands of our physicians, helps underscore this point.
I ached for the health care providers I knew and loved, struggling to reconcile the goodness in their hearts with the crushing realization that they might still be part of the problem. These weren’t cartoon villains, executing some master plan. They didn’t decide to hate fat people, or to harm us. They were just people. They were people who had developed their skills for years, been trained in a rigorous diagnostic approach.
I still struggle to say that the staggering ubiquity of weight stigma is a matter of life and death. But the personal stories are endless, and the research is damning. It feels melodramatic somehow to say that weight stigma kills, until I realize that it can. I remember Rebecca’s story: cancer undiagnosed for years. I think back to that research showing that weight stigma deters patients from seeking care.
The staggering evidence of anti-fat bias is disheartening, but it offers action for each of us. Fat or thin, doctors or patients, there are things we can all do to begin to chip away at this omnipresent stigma and the harrowing implications:Too often, when I shared my experiences with friends and family, they would parrot back the cutting questions and doubts in my own mind. That couldn’t have happened. You’re probably being too sensitive. Maybe you imagined it.
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