Women face weight discrimination at the doctor's office, too

[Missy Vixen]

I've read hundreds of articles here over the years posted by those who refuse to believe there is actual discrimination against the fat, especially against fat women. It seems the discrimination reaches all the way to the doctor's office.

As someone who's experienced similar treatment to the women in the article, at least CNN's brave enough to speak up about it.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/01/21/obesity.discrimination/

>It's shocking, but it's true: Being a woman who's more than 20 pounds overweight may actually hike your risk of getting poor medical treatment. In fact, weighing too much can have surprising -- and devastating -- health repercussions beyond the usual diabetes and heart-health concerns you've heard about for years.

Recent studies have found, if you are an overweight woman you:

• May have a harder time getting health insurance or have to pay higher premiums

• Are at higher risk of being misdiagnosed or receiving inaccurate dosages of drugs

• Are less likely to find a fertility doctor who will help you get pregnant

• Are less likely to have cancer detected early and get effective treatment for it

What's going on here? Fat discrimination is part of the problem. A recent Yale study suggested that weight bias can start when a woman is as little as 13 pounds over her highest healthy weight.

"Our culture has enormous negativity toward overweight people, and doctors aren't immune," says Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Jerome Groopman, M.D., author of "How Doctors Think." "If doctors have negative feelings toward patients, they're more dismissive, they're less patient, and it can cloud their judgment, making them prone to diagnostic errors."<

I'm sure this thread will quickly fill with the usual suspects. In the meantime, it's nice to finally have this acknowledged by a media source.

[Captain Hilts]

1. The overweight are the most discriminated against in the workplace. I see no reason

it would be any different in a doctor's office.

[Dinger]

2. K & R

Thank you.

[Blue_In_AK]

3. I got chewed out by a doctor last year

because I'm 10 pounds over BMI, despite the fact that all my readings -- cholesterol, blood pressure, heart rate, etc. -- were perfect, despite the fact that during the summer I walk 20 miles a week and during the winter spend three or four hours a week on the elliptical machine. Despite the fact that I eat a healthy diet, no junk food, and seldom consume more than 1800 calories a day. I'm 63 years old and hardly ever sick.

They can stuff their BMI where the sun don't shine.

[Missy Vixen]

4. Ten pounds?

You need a new doctor. IMHO.

:hug:

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Yeah, he was totally out of line.

He even told my husband he should lose THREE pounds. My husband is 62, 5'11" and weighs about 178, basically what he weighed in high school. It's just crazy.

This isn't our family doctor, by the way, but one of the docs at the MEBA union clinic in Oakland where we get our yearly physicals. We pay quite a bit for our health insurance, but at least they pay our air fare once a year to fly down there for the free physical. I can't complain. I'll just ignore the doctor. :) Who was built like a fire hydrant, by the way.

[tblue]

29. That fire hydrant is a quack.

You can tell him I said that.

[HipChick]

BMI is not a good indicator..

It doesn't account for a lot of factors

[kudzu22]

9. BMI = bull***t made-up indicator

[etherealtruth]

8. Years ago

I was waiting in a "new" ob/gyn's office (by chance a very short very slight man) .... he entered the room and looked at me with something akin to shock. He had been prepared to lecture me on my weight ... until he saw that I was 5'8 1/2" and "ripped" (at 48, all I can say is that I am still 5' 8 1/2").... he readily admitted that he had been prepared to lecture me about my weight as that is the information that had jumped out at him. His perception of me, as a person, clearly would have been very different had I been 5'1" and 135 lbs.

[Kalyke]

22. I'm 5'1" and weigh more than 135, yet I wear a size 8.

I do have to wear a larger size in shirts because I'm top-heavy, but large chests run in my family. I wear an 8 in pants, skirts, etc., despite having two large children and two C-sections. In fact, when the doctor cut me open to take my second child, he said that I had virtually NO fat in my stomach.

All to to prove that this BMI bullshit doesn't take into consideration that muscle weighs far more than fat and one can weigh more than their prescribed BMI if they regular work out and/or walk, dance, move-around a lot building muscle.

[Blasphemer]

11. As a 15 year old girl, I developed a very serious body image complex because of a doctor

All because of 15 pounds. He hounded me and he was definitely not in ideal BMI range himself. It just reinforced the idea that women can't be 10 or 15 pounds overweight without being considered abnormal while men can. I look at pictures of myself from that time and it's sad to think about how I felt about myself relative to how I actually looked. We have a 13 year old family friend who is also being hounded about weight by a doctor. She is perfectly healthy and has a great body (someone almost 6 foot tall carries 15-20 "extra" pounds very well). I understand being concerned about someone genuinely obese but harping on 10-20 pounds isn't really necessary, especially when dealing with teenage girls. Once upon a time, all I wanted was to weigh 100 pounds. Now, I'm perfectly content if I'm 10, 15 or 20 pounds "overweight".

[eShirl]

18. BMI is based on a hight/weight ratio, doesn't take into account muscle or fat %'s

as an extreme example, a bodybuilder can have a very low % of body fat but will be considered overweight based on BMI alone.

[havocmom]

5. Yep. I can't get a doctor to order an x-ray of the joints that cause sever pain.

I get 'Lose the weight!' despite my telling them the weight came on due to the pain that started when I was thin and walked 25-50 miles a week and then got some exercise.

Overweight men I know got e-rays and serious help for torn up joints.

[Missy Vixen]

6. You need a hug, too

Maybe there needs to be some kind of registry for doctors across the country that actually listen to their patients.

:eyes:

And also, :hug:

[havocmom]

12. Goin to a O.D. in next attempt

They are more holistically focused and body mechanics seem to be a reality to more of them than any Internists I have ever met (who like their pharma reps a bit too much in my opinion)

[The empressof all]

17. I'm in a similar postion

I had a doctor/orthopod also told me that statistically fat people don't lose weight after joint replacement as they won't exercise anyway.

[havocmom]

27. Nice to have treatment based on bigotry that uses statistics to justify bad care

My family all has same joint issues. Genetic. Skinny to begin with, until made immobile by pain. But the gents in the clan get help. The ladies... not so much.

I had a female rheuamotologist inquire when my last chest x-ray was. Never had one. Never? Nope, never.

She sighed, shook her head and asked about my brothers. Yep, both (one older, one younger) have had them, and other x-rays too. She was pissed and did a little rant, but in the end, she didn't order a chest x-ray either. She got pics of my hands that are trashed, and my feet that are not hurting yet, but she too ignored the joints in between and cause me so much pain that I can't walk.

[truedelphi]

31. You might try this - give up wheat flour in entirety

For five or six days. See if your pain level goes down. (You do have to read labels - soy sauce and many things like bottled gravies contain wheat.)

We were tired of having to really "need" pain meds. And tired of feeling run down and out of sorts.

Right before Thanksgiving, we inadvertently went through all the pasta and bread. And then neither of us felt like going to the store till the Big SHopping for the Big Day.

Low and behold, three days away from wheat, and we both felt wonderful. It has been over two months now, and you could not pay us to go back to eating wheat. LAst summer X rays indicated my spine was deteriorating. But the pain that had me ask for those X rays is gone. Disappeared. Nada.

[havocmom]

36. already have

but thanks for posting that. So many people seem to have a real problem with gluten without knowing it. Lots of folks should try gluten free (or very low) for many issues. Wheat is not the only source of it, and it is added to way too many processed foods. One must really know what is in the foods eaten.

I don't eat much meat at all either. I drink soy milk mostly, have cow milk once in a great while, but do eat cheese or yogurt sometimes. With or without cheese/yogurt (have done experiments over time) doesn't seem to affect the pain levels or inflammation. I LOVE plant protein foods and have relied heavily on them for decades anyway. Veggies are great, fruits I have to push myself to eat. I do love berries though.

[Hekate]

39. Running out of bread was how my little boy got diagnosed with celiac disease.

The poor little guy had the runs almost continuously after weaning. I'd just get him sorted out and it would start up again. There was an ever-growing list of foods that I thought set him off.

One week I ran out of bread and simply couldn't squeeze in a trip to the store, so I told the baby sitter to use rice -- tuna on top of rice, peanut butter on top of rice, scrambled egg on top of rice. By the end of the week he was "cured," and when I told the pediatrician, he said that it was first-form celiac disease, and that he could run a thousand dollars worth of tests (this was 30 years ago) or I could simply eliminate all wheat and rye from his diet. That's when I discovered that wheat and its by-products are in more things than you would believe, and also that trying to teach everyone around you what that means to your kid is really difficult, too....

But the difference to his health was immediate and undeniable.

Hekate

[truedelphi]

43. i am so glad that our Goddess of Serendipity looked out for your little boy.

It seems like it is quite difficult for the doctors to think of this wheat problem as causing difficulties for people.

In a way, my doctor helped me figure it out - it just so happened on Day 3 of being without wheat, I had a doctor visit. And the first thing they ask is,"What is yr pain level today?"

I always answer over 7 on a scale of one to ten. (Unless I have a ride to clinic and so been able to take my pain meds.)

When I said zero, the nurse looked at my file and went, "Hmm. So what are you doing differently?"

Otherwise I might not have noticed - as I hadn't really thought about the dietary switch.

Added bonus - have lost seven pounds without trying. And I am no longer always feeling hungry.

[kudzu22]

10. Is it just fat women

or fat people in general? I tend to think it's the latter.

[BrklynLiberal]

14. Women as a group are likely to be misdiagnosed more than men, I

would guess that fat women are being hurt in both categories..like a double whammy.

[etherealtruth]

16. My guess is that the threshold for women is lower ....

A woman that is 10% over her "ideal" body weight is "fat" .... for guys they may be a little husky (or other benign euphemisms) ....actually, at 10% over an ideal weight would not even be noticed on a man.

I would agree that obesity is judged very harshly in both genders, though.

[BrklynLiberal]

13. Do you think female doctors do this too? Do they look down upon heavy women?

[Warpy]

19. I think nearly all normal weight people look down on overweight people

and view gaining weight as evidence of moral failure.

Overweight women face the worst of this prejudice since the standard of female beauty is the anorexic's body. Any woman who doesn't conform is seen as a lazy glutton.

This wouldn't be so terribly unfair if we had a treatment for obesity. We don't. Over 90% of people who starve down to the insurance company's actuarial table ideal weight will gain it back plus more within 5 years.

[BrklynLiberal]

23. It is a sad, vicious cycle...

and in most cases, the cheapest, fastest foods are those that lead to obesity.

Another problem we can blame on corporations with all their food advertising aimed at kids.

[The empressof all]

20. Personally, I haven't seen a significant difference

My female GP is great but I've had really bad experiences with female (and male) Gyno's

[southernyankeebelle]

15. I think I was born fat. I hated myself from the beginning. I never thought I would

find love and happiness. I finally went to have surgery to loose the weight. It worked for many years. I married to a wonderful man who loves me for who I am fat or skinny. We have been married 31 yrs and I wouldn't trade my man. He is about 160 lbs and am 260lbs. I have stressed for years with self hate. Finally I realized I have to stop and get the hell of this cycle of hating myself. People who don't have a weight problem will never understand. When I turn 50 everything starting going down hill with the effects of weight surgery I had but still don't regret having. I don't have high blood pressure, or choloestrol problems. I am iron deficient to where I need infusions for iron. I recently got a heart condition. But I haven't had any of my doctors talk to me about losing weight. I guess they see the problems I have had. I come to the conclusion its my problem. Paying extra for health insurance is sad but then again I come to accept things as they are. I am charged extra for buy cloths. Before long I will pay extra for having to breath.

[etherealtruth]

26. For some reason there is a concerted effort to try to make people hate themselves

I am very happy that you were able to break the cycle of self loathing and recognize your own true worth. After 31 years it is pretty obvious your husband has always recognized your true worth as a human being.

"Noli nothis permittere te terere."

[truedelphi]

32. What is sad about your story is that scientists in the know

can point to a whole host of factors that cause people to weigh more than desired. Exposure in the womb to various toxins, like pesticides.

Yet our society blames the person, bnot the outrside workings of an industry driven supermarket, and industry driven factory farms.

I am very glad you found the right person. Many men "secretly" desire bigger women, but our society makes them hide that desire, as though it too is abnormal. (Why would it be? Until one hundred years ago, skinny women were indications of lack of food supply. And thus they were not as desirable as fertility factor might not exist.)

[Hekate]

21. These first 2 dozen posts are so real, let's make a pact about the "usual suspects"...

Alert on any who show up. I've given up on any of them ever gaining insight, empathy, or compassion.

:grouphug: to all of you.

Hekate

[Fire1]

24. I thought fat was where it's at, now days! n/t

[Boojatta]

25. "If doctors have negative feelings toward patients, they're more dismissive, they're less patient"

If there's more patient, then doctors are less patient?

[wellstone dem]

28. I lost 40 pounds a year or so ago

and it is amazing to me how different I am treated. I am listened to, respected, complemented, in ways I never dreamed were possible. The only thing that changed about me was my weight. I am very careful how I treat others.

[kudzu22]

49. Congratulations

Amazing what a few pounds lost can do for your life, isn't it?

[CTyankee]

30. When will all the docs, and the patients themselves, get real and get serious about

the awful American diet? The food in this country is horrendous. No wonder people are overweight and unhealthy! When I go to Europe and look at what people eat there and compare it to what we eat here, it's astonishing.

Where did we get such bad eating habits? Why do we produce such bad food in the first place? Why is it I have to read every label of prepackaged foods and do a mental jiu-jitsu to put together a simple meal plan for a week?

Food should be fresh, flavorful and nourishing. That is what it is here for, not to be turned into a laboratory formula designed to make us dependent on fat, sugar and salt and churned out in large quantities.

This situation has me quite perturbed...

[Hekate]

37. When did food become an "industry" and life's necessity become a "product" to be "pushed"?

Many things about the industry work against our health. The addition of ingredients completely unknown to our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, ingredients unknown to Nature itself.

35 years ago I knew to read the labels for nitrates and limit my consumption of those products. 30 years ago I read all labels with great care because my little boy had celiac disease. But when he outgrew that, I didn't read the labels very often. I thought I knew what was in things.

So it wasn't until last year that I learned about HFCS in detail and started reading labels for that ingredient. It is in damn near everything now, and 25 years ago it was not.

We can't live without food, and in the marketplace it's now treated like just another commodity that we can be persuaded to purchase ever-increasing quantities of, like shoes or blouses. Marketers are not providing one of the necessities and social pleasures of life, they are pushing product. Restaurant portions, especially fast-food, have expanded exponentially. Unless you cook strictly from-scratch at home and never eat out, you are being sabotaged at every turn.

Hekate

[CTyankee]

38. Thank you. So true. I make some simple dishes at home that almost anybody can make.

It is a terrible thing that our populace is so uninformed and so traduced by the food industry in this country!

[PDJane]

33. Yes, of course.........

Most women in the US and Canada are a size 14 or larger. The schmattas industry considers a size 8 to ten a plus size. There's a disconnect here.....but it does sell products.

[Odin2005]

34. K&R

[treestar]

35. There are so many overweight people in America

that discrimination against them would not be good business. No need to cut out half your customer base.

[CTyankee]

40. There should be NO discrimination against people who need HELP.

Their lives are at stake! How will they survive if they don't have medical care?

I am increasingly concerned about these people...

[Hekate]

41. LOL. Little do you know. Product gets pushed, but social attitudes are reinforced...

... in many ways. Have you ever noticed that all the models in the Carl's Jr. ads are rail-thin, yet shown devouring a burger built for three? I'd wager a small sum that the female models purge themselves after the shoot.

Beyond that, as far as DU goes (and why there was a reference to "the usual suspects" in the OP) just do a search for "obese airline passengers" at DU. But bring a barf bag--there's an incredible amount of contempt and outright hate among "progressives."

Hekate

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hekate]

44. This really is a case where your own attitude is out of line, as well as your willingness to...

... read and comprehend the thread in its entirety.

Seriously, STFU.

Hekate

[Realityhack]

45. It is hard to know what to make of this as...

there is no citation of any published study just references to 'studies say' which in news speak means 'the scariest results we could cherry pick' and some quotes from various doctors about what they 'think' the problem might be.
For all we know some of these could be strictly correlative studies.

Of course I expect there to be some real factual basis in many of these cases. I just don't want to read too far in to the 'CNN Meta study' rather than perusing actual research.

[Hekate]

46. If you will read and consider the thread in its entirety, you will see that people are discussing...

... their own experiences, which are difficult, and are validating each other, which is valuable in a system which can drive one crazy. At a minimum it helps to identify which part of it is the crazy part -- in this case, the system.

It is WELL documented that doctors often do not listen to women seriously, nor take their symptoms as seriously as they do men's. Body-image issues among quite young girls, caused by incessant media messages, is also WELL documented. Also WELL documented is society's contempt for women who are even slightly overweight (15 pounds), much less obese.

This is not an academic thesis with footnotes. We are, however, validating our PERSONAL experiences in an honest fashion. Please do not dismiss this as "anecdotal" when this is about our own health, our own lives, and our own experiences and observations.

Read and learn; criticize somewhere else.

Hekate

[Missy Vixen]

47. Sorry our experiences aren't "scientific" enough for you

I'm sure you'll find another "citation" shortly that makes sure those of us who experience this on a daily basis are wrong.

Here's a few things for you to chew on, Sparky. What would you do if you experienced this at a doctor's office?

1. I have been battling problems with fatigue, unexplainable (and significant) weight gain, dry skin, either being freezing cold or intolerably warm, bla bla bla since at least high school. I begged my former GP for a TSH (thyroid hormone) test after a lot of reading on the subject. It took almost three years to persuade her. The normal TSH is anywhere between 0.00 - 5. Mine was 75. My thyroid was dead. Her reaction? "I can't believe you're still walking around."

2. Same doctor, and this is the thing that finally made me sever our relationship: Phen/Fen. I am damn lucky I have no residual effects. Instead of even attempting to get to the root cause of what was going on, she felt medication was a better option. Another woman in our hometown wasn't quite so lucky. She died at 32 from PPH, caused by Phen/Fen.

3. A couple of years later. Different doctor. Broke my big toe after running into a piece of furniture in our house after dark. The doctor refused to set my toe. After all, I was "too fat to cast". I looked him right in the eye and said, "That's interesting. If one of the Seattle Seahawks walked in here right now, you'd cast him, wouldn't you? They outweigh me." (The local pro football team's practice facility is named after the medical institution in question, interestingly enough.)

4. We were in a fairly bad car accident four months before our wedding. I had intractable neck pain that wasn't responding to PT or painkillers. The "top rehab doc" on the West Coast would not take an x-ray. Obviously, I was "stressed out" over our upcoming wedding. If I "lost 25 pounds", the pain would go away. Imagine how excited I was to have some x-rays taken at the local chiropractor's office, and discover that I had torn ligaments in my neck.

I'm a little more outspoken than most overweight women. I'm sure he'll never forget my walking into his office for a scheduled appointment with the films I'd borrowed from the chiropractor, slapping them up on his lightbox-thingy, and asking him, "Why don't you tell me why I shouldn't file suit against you and your practice for one dollar right now?"

I looked until I found a doctor that does not blame every malady I've ever experienced on my weight, listens to what I have to say before making a decision about a treatment plan, reads up on thyroid disease so he can treat and advise me and multiple other female patients (Western Washington has an unusually high incidence of the disease, for some unknown reason,) and freely admits he doesn't have the golden answer for weight loss, either. I wish everyone had a doctor like him. Unfortunately, there's an entire industry of them who believe their bigotry and prejudice against anyone who carries extra weight, especially females, is acceptable.

-MV

p.s. Oh, yeah -- doctors like to hand out anti-depressants to middle aged women. What are the typical side effects of most anti-depressants? WEIGHT GAIN.

[Skittles]

48. very ugly but sadly, not surprising

I'm shocked by how vicious many DUers are when discussing obesity issues so it does not surprise me to learn it can extend to the doctor's office too :(