yes you can!!! hahaha! i know i haven't posted in a long while, but i do check up on the blog and read everyone's posts and comments a couple times a week so KEEP ON POSTING!!
anyway, i regularly get SPARKPEOPLE updates and articles in my email and saw this one today and it reminded me of the comment i left on mal's latest post about how i believe that people can be relatively healthy and still be overweight. now, i don't say this because i want or intend to be a fat girl for the rest of my life, but rather because as a female who has almost always struggled with her weight, i can tell you that over the past ten years i have personally experienced the various stages of being thin and healthy, thin and unhealthy, fat and unhealthy, and yes, even fat and healthy (SHOCK!!). now you could say "but all the doctors and research and conventional wisdom tell us that the state of being overweight is unhealthy". but if there is one thing i've learned from my extensive years in college it's that conventional wisdom (usually derived from scientists and research) soon becomes traditional which eventually becomes old-fashion (because of new research conducted by new scientist) and in my experience this is particularly true when it comes to the "science" of human health. now for me personally, i have struggled with some serious health issues over the past few years and they can all be tied into being fat. the catch is, however, that when i first experienced these problems i was not fat at all! in fact, i would say that my fatness has come about primarily because of these health problems, not the other way around and in actuality since i've been fat, i've never been diagnosed with a new health problem. the reason i am addressing this is not because i'm a fan of obesity, i am not going to join the fat club of america or sue a clothing company for not carrying a plus size. i plan to lose weight simply because i know and believe that health issues can occur by the extra fat carried around. the dead weight (which is what i call fat) that your body carries. i am addressing this issue because i have personally witnessed the prejudices and assumptions placed on fat people, and while it may be an annoyance or esteem-killer to hear it from friends, family and strangers, i think it is especially harmful to have these assumptions and prejudices made by your healthcare provider.
for example, when i was 19 years old i was a freshman in college and weighed all of 115 lbs. Unlike a lot of people, i did not put on the notorious "freshman 15", in fact, i did not put on any weight at all that year and it wasn't because i was being particularly healthy either (i didn't exercise, i didn't diet, and there were all you can eat ice cream and waffle bars in the cafeteria of which i would usually have one on top of the other!) however, despite being thin, that year i was diagnosed with clinical depression, insomnia, and was placed on prescription medications for severe back pain. over the next two years i did gain about 45lbs as i dealt with my increasingly debilitating mind. at one point i moved back home and lost twenty pounds and when i moved from home to hawaii i weighed 140lbs, which, though considerably heavier than the 115 i was when i started college, i was now 22 years old, had been through some stuff and 140lbs was still considered within the "healthy weight range" according to the body mass index or BMI (which is a WHOLE other post!). now, in hawaii i not only suffered even more from my depression, but i was now additionally diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and something that one doctor said was an ovarian cyst while another thought it was endometriosis. i also was experiencing problems with my legs that no one seemed to be able to figure out. whenever i went in to see the doctor (which during this time i saw 4 doctors, 1 physician assistant, 1 nurse, and 2 psychiatrists), not one of them suggested that any of my health problems had anything to do with my weight or activity level. the reason i am bringing all of this up is because during all of the times that i was relatively thin, i did not have one healthcare provider suggest to me that any of my health problems were in anyway connected to my weight. however, since i have been obese, almost every time i've gone in to see a doctor they almost always suggest that my weight is the reason i am having problems until i explain that i had the problem long before i ever had the weight. now, i do not blame the doctor, they are simply regurgitating their training which is always in line with popular research which right now says that if a fat person walks into the room complaining of a headache then it's because she's fat. and though i do believe and understand that obesity can cause and advance all of the problems i previously mentioned, including the depression and anxiety disorder, the point is that in my case i had the illness before i was even fat.
anyway, this is kind of a long post in order to make my point. but i really just wanted to point out that although obesity can be dangerous because it can bring with it a whole host of medical problems, it is important, especially for physicians, to realize that not everything wrong with a fat person is connected to their weight. if your patient comes in complaining of a headache, yes, consider it might be because she is suffering from sleep apnea caused by her weight, but also consider that she might not have sleep apnea but rather interrupted sleep caused by her husband's snoring and a headache caused by the stress of raising three kids. it's just a thought.
AMEN.
ReplyDeleteHopefully your doctors learned not to assume when you pointed out the error in their thinking. My PA actually told me she'd rather I maintain my weight than focus on losing weight. So I've been focusing on that, and the weight loss has just been a bonus.