Bad health care.

Please read this NYT article about a hospital hit by Katrina in New Orleans.  The article is disturbing but worth the read.  It is about how hospital staff, one doctor in particular may have euthanized patients rather than evacuating them.  In it you can see some of the callousness that fat people face in the medical field. Two of the patients who died were fat.  One was awake and aware but unfortunately paraplegic.  He was denied evacuation due to his size.  The worse part was this section: "Several medical staff members who helped lead boat and helicopter transport that day say they would certainly have found a way to evacuate Everett. They say they were never made aware of his presence."  (Italics mine).

And doctors who are fat or promote HAES often come under attack.  Dr. Regina Benjamin, a highly qualified candidate for Surgeon General was ridiculed due to her weight.  The continuing Newsweek Fat Wars series has an article by a fat nutritionist who loves her body and promotes HAES is attacked by commentators.  Many even questioning her credentials as a nutritionist.

And of course we are constantly being told that Weight loss surgery will cure EVERYTHING. Once you get it, you'll be dancing in the street and crapping rainbows!  Now considering how well doctors treat us, do you really want to rely on them for the rest of your life?

Meanwhile a great interview with Paul Campos shows that losing weight doesn't have much of a positive benefit.  I particular like "focusing on making Americans thinner diverts resources from real public health issues."

To me all these stories--fat people killed during an emergency, fat professionals questioned and constantly being harassed to have WLS--makes me feel that fat people are considered less than human. This idea that somehow the body is more worthy than the mind and the soul is just plain wrong.

Comments

[Sarah]

A colleague of mine made a very insightful observation today - if you don't care about the person behind the body, you shouldn't work in the medical field.

But yet, we have all these jokers saying that prejudice against fat people is acceptable because we're so "abnormal" and "ugly." Abnormal and ugly to WHO, exactly? And then, fat people (they say) just eat too much and don't go to the gym. I like how people who have never met me can judge me - and others.

I wonder if these people see the irony in their comments.