Arkansas wastes our time and money and Some Doctors think fat women don't deserve care.

In 2003 Arkansas created a health bill to make fat kids thin. Then governor Mike Huckabee who had lost 100 lbs after being diagnosed with diabetes wanted a "lean" and "healthy" Arkansas. Some claim he had weight loss surgery which he denied. He has also since gained the weight back. Anyway, under the new rules Arkansas schools would send home BMI screenings and report cards, fewer vending machines in school, limit junk food and increase physical activity.

The results? Some eight years later? A huge waste of time and money. Not only are fat kids still fat there has been very little increase in healthy behaviors. In fact kids are consuming more junk food. 

Now look at this waste of time and money in Arkansas and look at Let's Move. While Arkansas was more harsh, both programs prefer that children get thin rather than healthy. Stigma against fat people is in all walks of life and a recent study by the Journal of Health Communication points out that fat people are often portrayed negatively in media articles (i.e. the headless fattie.)

Obese individuals are frequently stigmatized in online news photographs; this phenomenon has important implications for public perceptions of obese persons and may reinforce pervasive prejudice and discrimination.

Meanwhile in South Florida, some OB/GYN doctors have decided that women who weigh over 200 lbs don't deserve any care. 

Fifteen obstetrics-gynecology practices out of 105 polled by the Sun Sentinel said they have set weight cut-offs for new patients starting at 200 pounds or based on measures of obesity — and turn down women who are heavier...  "People don't realize the risk we're taking by taking care of these patients," said Dr. Albert Triana, whose two-physician practice in South Miami declines patients classified as obese. "There's more risk of something going wrong and more risk of getting sued. Everything is more complicated with an obese patient in GYN surgeries and in [pregnancies]."

So the doctors have assumed no matter what that fat=high risk. I have to wonder if these same doctors don't see smokers  as high risk patients as well? A doctor should see a patient first before deciding they can't treat them. And if you are in OB/GYN who can't handle high risk pregnancy, do ALL pregnant women a favor and find another field. No one needs a doctor who is more worried about lawsuits than caring for a patient. Sometimes women seem low risk in the beginning and have complications at the end. What do you tell them "Oh sorry, I don't do high risk, you are on your own." 

 

Comments

[Erin S.]

Back when I still smoked, I absolutely did have doctors who refused to treat me - for anything - unless I either quit smoking or was making a "serious attempt using all resources at my disposal" to do so. These were general practitioners, not specifically OB/GYNs, but it wouldn't surprise me that if a GP can get away with that, so can a specialist.

We've also had the experience of a vet threatening to "fire" us as clients because we weren't treating a cat's obesity aggressively enough. So it isn't even just limited to human doctors denying care because they don't want to treat fat patients for anything other than fat.

Of course, they're always willing to "treat" us for that, at least as long as we continue to give them money for whatever snake oil remedy they want to shame us into.