This is my desk from the obesity medicine clinic. It is a “weight shame free zone”. Here are things that patients too often bring to our first appointment, but in a better world, should never have had to be raised:
1. Guilt/shame
2. All the diets they tried that leave them hungry
3. Nutribabble from friends, trainers, influencers
4. All the supplements, bars, pills, clubs, hypnosis … €€€€€
5. Considering unsafe medical tourism
6. Any discussion that involves the phrase “eat less, move more”
7. All the bad advice they have received from cosmetic/aesthetic industry [If you missed it: weight is not beauty! Yes, I will say it over and over and over!]
#Obesity is a complex and recurring disease. There are better and safer treatments for this disease. Sadly, they are not as easily accessible in Ireland as patients deserve. And that gap is filled too often by bad or unsafe advice.
And the continuing idea that health and body image are the same thing. Why is this on my mind this morning? No par-Twitter-cular reason…
While other diseases also, unfortunately, also attract a great deal of really bad and unsafe – even if sometimes well-meaning – advice (I’ve talked here before about those that prey on cancer or long covid patients) or patients shaming – when it come to obesity, it does seem to be next level!
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