I have seen the same doctor in my little town for about 20 years now. He’s an Asian man (both parents came over to the states from China) who was born in Arkansas so it takes you completely by surprise when you obviously SEE an Asian man and he talks to you with this twangy southern drawl.
He knows my husband and me by name and can remember everything we’ve ever seen him for. I think he actually enjoys seeing us when we make an appointment with him, even though we’re not always tickled to see him.
My doctor is always a nice guy and acts as if he truly has an interest in my health and he tries not to talk down to me but every time I had an appointment with him I would leave so depressed because he told me all the things I “should” be doing to lose weight. He would say, “when I want to lose weight I go to the pool. Water is a great way to get a low-no impact workout.” Or he would say, “We need to get you down to 1500 calories a day or have you tried Weight Watchers?” DUH! Other than the comments about my weight I really like the guy.
Last year I had hit a pretty rock bottom place and in May I even contemplated suicide. I didn’t want to leave the house, see people or go to work. I, in fact, took a couple of days off work because I just couldn’t get out of bed. I went to my doctor for some advice and he got me in touch with a local therapist and I started seeing him. BUT the crux of that appointment was to tell my doctor that I couldn’t listen to him tell me about how to lose weight anymore (and I wasn’t going to). I’m 40-something years old and I KNOW how to lose weight. I know what I weigh, I don’t want to be weighed every time I go in (and I don’t NEED to be weighed every time I go in). I know how to exercise. I know how to count calories. I know I’m a compulsive overeater/binge eater. I know how to keep a food/emotion diary. I know how to eat off of smaller plates. I know all the diet tricks. STOP TELLING ME OVER AND OVER LIKE I’M THREE YEARS OLD!
He listened to me. I’ve always felt he cared about my well being but he couldn’t have done anything more precious to me than to listen to me and take to heart that those conversations were sometimes very painful for me.
Now when I go see my doctor, I check in and I’m treated for what I came in for and nothing more. No more diet talk and no more “shoulds”. I have none of the health issues that are so easily attributed to obesity so there is no reason why he should constantly talk diets with me except that I’m fat.
I just wanted to let everyone out there know that there are some doctors out there who “try” to see where we’re coming from – even though in the end they really don’t because they’ve been brainwashed as much as anyone else to believe fat equals bad.
But I also want everyone to know that as a patient, you have the right to be treated with respect and dignity. As a patient who is paying for a service, you have a right to tell the doctor what you expect. If the doctor isn’t willing to treat you the way you deserve, find another doctor. They don’t have to understand why you feel the way you do, just that you do. You don’t have to go into all the statistics about fat or go into all the instances of discrimination or even the emotional toll it’s taken on you. You simply have to set a boundary and ask him/her to respect it.
I hope you are all blessed to have good doctors because I know they are hard to find.
~sas
Angry Gray Rainbows 
Sas – you are so awesome.
I know all too well how easy it is to sit and say nothing… and perhaps nod along while a medical professional gives you the weight loss routine. Good for you for speaking up!!! You are awesome.
It must be a pretty sweet relief to not get all the diet talk when you go to your doc… and I bet that will make getting medical care feel like a much safer experience.
The funny bit is that you prolly know more about dietting than your doc does… at least now he knows that. 😉
Hey thanks for this post! I am lucky to have a great physician too…(I love you, Dr. Katz!!)…she has always encouraged me to be “pro-ME” and never suggested dieting, even though my weight has of course fluctuated over the course of several years. A good doctor can make such a huge difference in your quality of life…
My doctor had seemed terrific but last week he changed. Doubting he would listen I wrote him a letter.
Dear Dr ****,
I don’t want to offend you but I need you to understand how I feel. If I seemed confused on Tuesday and had trouble expressing myself it was because I was trying to avoid tears. I am very sensitive to the subject of obesity as experience has taught me that the moment a doctor mentions my weight and goes straight to diet he/she no longer sees past my size meaning serious illness might go unnoticed or untreated. The fight or flight reaction kicked in and I became more stressed as the feelings of rejection increased. Ironically, having come to trust and respect you I had made the appointment specifically to discuss my weight and the unusual structure of the fat, on my abdomen and between my shoulders, which is possibly not entirely attributable to Lymphodema but I didn’t have that opportunity.
It seemed to me that you did not believe me when I tried to outline my regular diet. To clear up any confusion: my diet mainly consists of lean meat, grilled fish, smoked salmon or six oysters, eggs (yolk removed after first egg) and various salad leaves (the dressing of which are sugar free and no fat, or plain lemon juice, or Balsamic vinegar) and seasonal vegetables steamed or stir fried in olive oil (mainly English spinach, fresh asparagus, capsicum, aubergine, microwaved mushrooms, spring onions, broccoli, celery etc).
When you pulled up < I felt it as an act of infantalization, as you had formerly treated me as an intelligent and cultured woman. No part of the picture blog, with its demonstration pile of white sugar cubes, applied to me. I do not consume fizzy drinks, fast food or processed foods nor do I eat pizza and would never darken the door of McDonalds or Kentucky fried because surprise, surprise, I am a very good cook and when I was slim and wealthy mostly dined at the finest restaurants in many parts of the world. I was staggered when you said I should replace fruit with a carrot. I eat one small serving of fresh fruit maybe once a day (raspberries, strawberries, red grapefruit, passionfruit etc and tomato) all of which are not much above the carrot in sugar content. I do not have bread, milk, sweets, cake or biscuits in the house. Items like the repellant tins of John West tuna, sardines or baked beans you suggested are quite foreign to my eating experience.
Had you believed me, you would have immediately realised that punitive micromanagement of my diet was not only unnecessary but would be detrimental to our goal. Had you thought about which person you were talking to, you would not have attempted to impose such a grossly culturally inappropriate diet. The approach denied my person, and nullified my own achievements. I don’t understand why you would want to do that.
During our conversation I attempted to say that I thought humiliation was fattening and as a fat woman I feel every cut delivered daily by the media about obesity. The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale confirms this and the New York Times weighed in, “Dr. Peter A. Muennig, an assistant professor of health policy at Columbia, says stigma can do more than keep fat people from the doctor: it can actually make them sick. “Stigma and prejudice are intensely stressful,” he explained. “Stress puts the body on full alert, which gets the blood pressure up, the sugar up, everything you need to fight or flee the predator.” Over time, such chronic stress can lead to high blood pressure, diabetes and other medical ills, many of them (surprise!) associated with obesity.”
I really felt that stress on the way home when I recalled you saying to me “If you keep going this way you might be one of those people who have eventually to be removed from their house by a forklift truck (sic)” and tears started to roll down my face. Overcome by embarrassment, I fled to the shopping centre in a blur wanting to be comforted, I bought things I have not bought for years. For dinner on Tuesday night I fought against sorrow with two dozen oysters, an entire bottle of decent wine and a whole bar of chocolate. Bring on the forklift truck!
Having no advocate, my normal response would be to creep away, seeking medical help from the hospital solely when catastrophe strikes. I only have to look to my left or my right, to find someone who has never experienced a weight problem, keen to act as a judgmental dietitian. I don’t need them. I know more about weight and diet than most health workers because I live it. What I need is a doctor – I need you, Dr ****, I need the cultured man who reads books and I had come to respect. The doctor who treated me as an intelligent woman who was once a top flight journalist and award winning screenwriter, not merely a cretinous fat blob. Dr ****, I need you as a diagnostician, and it is there that you excel.
I will make another appointment. Do you think we could start again?
Magdala~
Good for you! You put on paper what was really bothering you and you also told him you respected his authority on medical issues that pertain to you. If he takes this letter wrong then it’s on him.
Again, good for you!
~sas