Fat patients shouldn’t have to accept “maybe if you were in a different body you wouldn’t be in pain” as a treatment plan or prescription. They should be given the same options for dealing with aches, pains, injuries etc. that thin people get.
I often hear from people who say something like “I just want to get back to the weight I was when I felt the best.” or “I know that when I’m a size x I’m healthier, my body is happiest at a size x.” When I ask them how they know that they will typically point to a time in their life when they were that size as proof.
Often in a conversation like this:
Me: When were you that weight?
Them: When I was 18
Me: How old are you now?
Them: 57
People don’t come to these conclusions out of nowhere. In truth, this idea is often driven by subconscious internalized fatphobia driven by the diet industry, and even if it were true the chance of succeeding at significant long-term weight loss is still miniscule. Luckily there are other, much more evidence-based ethical solutions to this dilemma.
There’s a lot to unpack here, so I wrote a piece about it for the Weight and Healthcare newsletter,.
You can read the full piece here!
UPCOMING ONLINE WORKSHOP:
Understanding the Research About Weight and Health
SPECIAL DATE: Thursday, February 24, 2022 5:30pm Pacific Time
Plus a video in case you can’t make it live (or want to watch again!)
Pay-what-you-can option available
The research around weight and health can be daunting, dense, confusing, and downright misleading. A mix of diet industry involvement and weight bias (from methodology to media reporting) has created a world where what “everybody knows” about weight and health is often not supported by the actual research. In this workshop we’ll talk about the existing research around weight and health, learn techniques to evaluate media articles and studies to see past the weight bias and diet industry smoke screen and get to the truth. This workshop will deal with concepts in plain language and is for research nerds and non-research nerds alike, including those with no experience at all in research methods.
Full details and Registration: https://danceswithfat.org/monthly-online-workshops/
*This workshop is free for DancesWithFat members – login info is on the member page
Become a member here!
Missed one of my monthly workshops? You can still get the video here!
Like This Blog? If you appreciate the work that I do, you can support my ability to do more of it with a one-time tip or by becoming a member. (Members get free registration to the monthly workshops, a free (paid-level) subscription to my Weight and Healthcare newsletter, special deals on fat-positive stuff, and a monthly e-mail keeping them up to date on the work their membership supports.
Book Me! I’d love to speak to your organization (and I can do it remotely!) I speak to healthcare, college, corporate, and general audiences about topics including weight science, weight stigma, and the Health at Every Size paradigm. You can get more information here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org