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> go ask your fat friend about his last check-up The doctor probably told him to lose weight. And?

by throwaway201103 6y ago

wutbrodo 6y ago
The complaint is usually that doctors are overly reductive towards overweight people, treating their weight as a hard-blocker to listening to any other problems that can potentially be treated (or palliated) in parallel. I can't speak to its veracity, as I'm not privy to the medical history of anyone I know who's overweight.
- pc86 6y ago
  Overweight people have more medical problems, and the more overweight you are, the more problems you will have and the more severe they will be (in aggregate, we can find exceptions to every rule). I've heard this complaint as well but it's usually from people not doing much to lose the weight in the first place. If you've gone from 400 lbs to 300 lbs in 6 months and suddenly you have knee pain you never had before, I think most GPs would take an acute interest in that and not just chalk it up to being 300 lbs. But if you've gone from 250 lbs to 300 lbs and suddenly develop knee pain, you're going to have a hard time convincing anyone that it's not the obvious problem.
  - wutbrodo 6y ago
    Sure, the fact that there's a plausible motivation on the doctor's side is the reason I don't have much of an opinion on the veracity of the claim. That doesn't preclude the possibility a trend exists within the medical system of worse care for the overweight due to treating weight as a hard blocker. I chose my framing of the claim I've heard pretty carefully, and what you're saying only supports it: as being overweight is upstream of so many health problems, it seems entirely plausible that doctors (given that they're human beings) would be prone to falling in the trap of not wanting to think about anything that can be done while the weight problem is still being worked on (or not). Again, this doesn't require assuming that doctors are horrible people; this kind of reductiveness is the way most people respond to everything. > it's usually from people not doing much to lose the weight in the first place This is far too arrogant an assumption for a doctor to be making about a patient. I don't know any overweight people, but I do know people who have had (theoretically solvable) drug problems and other bad health habits, and the blockers to fixing them are not always "just believe in yourself and have some willpower", especially when (even sub-clinical) mental health issues are involved. Hell, I used to smoke way too much weed and not eat particularly well (though never badly enough to get overweight) and it turns out I had an undiagnosed sleep disorder. If smoking weed happened to be associated with a bunch of health problems and I had a doctor who was narrowly focused on it and refused to help me with other incidental issues before I solved it, I'd be pretty upset too.

> go ask your fat friend about his last check-up The doctor probably told him to lose weight. And?

The complaint is usually that doctors are overly reductive towards overweight people, treating their weight as a hard-blocker to listening to any other problems that can potentially be treated (or palliated) in parallel. I can't speak to its veracity, as I'm not privy to the medical history of anyone I know who's overweight.

pc86 6y ago
Overweight people have more medical problems, and the more overweight you are, the more problems you will have and the more severe they will be (in aggregate, we can find exceptions to every rule). I've heard this complaint as well but it's usually from people not doing much to lose the weight in the first place. If you've gone from 400 lbs to 300 lbs in 6 months and suddenly you have knee pain you never had before, I think most GPs would take an acute interest in that and not just chalk it up to being 300 lbs. But if you've gone from 250 lbs to 300 lbs and suddenly develop knee pain, you're going to have a hard time convincing anyone that it's not the obvious problem.
- wutbrodo 6y ago
  Sure, the fact that there's a plausible motivation on the doctor's side is the reason I don't have much of an opinion on the veracity of the claim. That doesn't preclude the possibility a trend exists within the medical system of worse care for the overweight due to treating weight as a hard blocker. I chose my framing of the claim I've heard pretty carefully, and what you're saying only supports it: as being overweight is upstream of so many health problems, it seems entirely plausible that doctors (given that they're human beings) would be prone to falling in the trap of not wanting to think about anything that can be done while the weight problem is still being worked on (or not). Again, this doesn't require assuming that doctors are horrible people; this kind of reductiveness is the way most people respond to everything. > it's usually from people not doing much to lose the weight in the first place This is far too arrogant an assumption for a doctor to be making about a patient. I don't know any overweight people, but I do know people who have had (theoretically solvable) drug problems and other bad health habits, and the blockers to fixing them are not always "just believe in yourself and have some willpower", especially when (even sub-clinical) mental health issues are involved. Hell, I used to smoke way too much weed and not eat particularly well (though never badly enough to get overweight) and it turns out I had an undiagnosed sleep disorder. If smoking weed happened to be associated with a bunch of health problems and I had a doctor who was narrowly focused on it and refused to help me with other incidental issues before I solved it, I'd be pretty upset too.