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June 30, 2018 body confidence•accessible post•body positivity•disability•Lifestyle

Medical Fatphobia: Your Doctor and Your Weight

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Back in 2016, I wrote about what is so bad about my GP fat-shaming me. These kinds of posts are a bit of a mixed bag for me, because they always receive a lot of feedback – which is both wonderful, and heartbreaking. Wonderful because it is nice to know that we are all in the same boat, sharing similar experiences, and heartbreaking because it is horrible to know that we are all in the same boat, sharing similar experiences.

Interestingly, the time for the smear test I wrote about in that article has arrived, and I feel completely and utterly unable to attend. I have been to the doctor a lot in the last year, and every time I have had a blood test it has been performed by that same nurse, who has made a point of looking me up and down and sighing with disappointment every time she has seen me. I have come to realise that a lot of the problem is my own internalised fatphobia. Why is it that I can be so positive and carefree in so many other aspects of my life, but when I enter a doctor’s office I feel ashamed, and wrong, and scared of somebody pointing it out? Something inside of me still equates health with size, and then size with worth. This is so wrong for so many reasons, but the moment I enter the office of a medical professional I take 10 steps back in my journey and I feel like an absolute inconvenience and I wish I was anywhere else.

I have really struggled with working out why this is, but eventually it dawned on me – my doctors have been abusing me, and my mind is simply waiting for the next blow. I felt like maybe I was being dramatic, so I collected some data about the general experiences of fat people with medical professionals to ascertain whether or not I was just being oversensitive, or looking for problems where there were none. What I found was saddening, maddening and painfully familiar. From stories of small jabs that build up and up over time, to downright medical negligence, I was able to establish a selection of women – and 100% of the people who responded were women – who had been treated as if they were not worth appropriate medical care because of the way they looked. Their concerns were disregarded, their body types were blamed and ridiculed, and their mental health was overlooked entirely – in one case, even when in appointments directly relating to mental health. Here are some of the stories I heard.

I started with the story I shared in my last medical fatphobia post, with a few more details to boot. On top of this, I have another story that I did not share: when I was giving birth to my son, there was a horrible midwife who refused to see me as an adult. I was 22 years old, but she repeatedly spoke to my mother and husband instead of me. She asked me if social services were involved with me, and when I asked why she just shrugged and said she was surprised. When I was contracting, my mother could see my stomach harden from across the room but the midwife told me that she couldn’t be sure I wasn’t faking it because I was too fat for her to see any change. She was unhappy that the heartbeat monitor didn’t fit comfortably around my stomach. She told me she wasn’t happy with me having a bath because she couldn’t hoist me out of it. It got to ‘pushing time’ and when I told her I felt the urge, she rolled her eyes and told another doctor I was being dramatic and that there was no way I had progressed that quickly. I had gone from 6 to 10 centimetres in 30 minutes. My entire birth experience was very traumatic, and when I remember the way that horrible midwife made me feel subhuman it is just another painful memory to add to an awful situation. But unfortunately, people like her are not unique. Here’s how I know.

 

In addition to these examples, people with private accounts shared details of their difficult situations with their doctor. Across the board, women found that they were insulted and denigrated because of their appearance, and the health concern that brought them to the doctor was secondary. There appears to be no rhyme or reason – nothing to suggest that men are kinder, or women are more understanding. It’s just something that happens sometimes: sometimes, people are assholes. And sometimes, those assholes train to be doctors. And it is wrong and awful, and it shouldn’t fall to the abused to stand up to the abuser and tell them they are wrong – but maybe that is the only way we are ever going to see change.

When it comes to contraception and fertility treatments, there are so many more issues because of their medical rules on BMI and what they can offer/allow. To be honest, this deserves a post in itself but I really wanted to add this from an anonymous reply.

‘So my boyfriend and I went to the Dr with regards to trying and failing to conceive. Pretty much the moment we walked in she went on and on about my weight and asked if I had Pcos and couldn’t quite get over what my BMI was. She didn’t really ask my husband many questions and I was sent for a lot of tests.
After several months of blood tests, they eventually tested my boyfriend’s semen only to find that his count was super super low – and probably the reason for years of failed attempts at babymaking.’

Despite this blatant fatphobia and so many rules as to what they can and can’t do on BMIs over a certain level, when you actually research it, very little shows that there are risks to fatter people.

‘So one test I had to have was an ultrasound of my uterus to check its function, but I was told my BMI had to be lower for that. When I looked into why my BMI had to be a certain number for an ultrasound the only thing I could find was that it was to do with how much fat might be on my abdomen and how much they might be able to see. BMI is not an indicator of body shape or fat storage.’

‘We have been referred for IVF and I have been told that my weight would mean that I would not be eligible for multiple births. I felt super guilty about this as we sort of hoped twins might be on the cards. Then last week we had some paperwork come through that basically stated that they didn’t recommend multiple births for anyone just because of the risks that can occur with more than one foetus.’

It’s across all medical professional boards, it’s not just GPs. Here is another anonymous story about a fatphobic psychiatrist.

‘Had an appointment with a psychiatrist a couple of weeks ago and got diagnosed with ADHD. He explained the medication can cause weight loss “but that’s a good thing for some people” Then in my notes he’s written “appetite is good” when he didn’t even ask me about my appetite??? And if he had, he’d know that my appetite is terrible right now because I’m stressed af- hence needing a psychiatrist ffs- and I’ve lost a tonne of weight over the past couple of months. But hey, my BMI is still very obese so I must have a good appetite right???’

 

If you do find that you need help on how to handle a fatphobic doctor or what to say, then check out our latest post on Medical Fatphobia, 10 Ways To Handle a Fatphobic Doctor.

It is time for us to be the change. Because the doctors sure aren’t willing to do it.

 

 

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