If you’re fat, you’re going to have a rough time getting health insurance. You probably won’t get regular checkups and preventive care, and any health problems you might have (completely unrelated to your weight) will be a lot worse whenever you finally do see a doctor.
Even if you have health coverage, you probably avoid going to the doctor if you’re fat. So you’re in the same situation. Why do you avoid going to the doctor? Every time you walk into a doctor’s office, the first thing they want you to do is step on a scale. Then you get the lecture, or the belittling remark, or worse, the weight loss advice. You figure, as long as you feel okay, why risk it? You don’t pay for abuse in any other setting, right? You value your mental health, so you stay away.
If you’re fat and you do visit the doctor, he or she might decide to treat your weight, rather than your symptoms. You get a diet, rather than a diagnosis. The doctor says all your ills are caused by your fat. Six months later, you still have sharp pains in your heel or nasal congestion or shooting lights in your vision. So you find a new doctor. This time you actually get treatment for your plantar fasciitis or your sinus infection or your brain tumor. (These examples are based on actual cases.)
Your doctor may not like fat people. A recent study found that fat women are a third less likely to get breast exams, gynecologic exams, or Pap smears. An exception: Fat and thin women get mammograms equally often. (The authors said that doctors may do exams more readily if they don’t have to touch fat patients.) Fat women are at increased risk for certain scary cancers (breast, cervical, endometrial, ovarian). Getting less preventive care, researchers concluded, may “exacerbate or even account for” this increased risk. It’s not the fat that kills us, it’s the fat hatred.
this is so powerful. it’s fatshaming/phobia masqueraded in “health concerns”. is misogyny, women are valued for their bodies.
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But What About Your Health?
By Marilyn Wann
From Fat!So? Because You Don’t Have to Apologize For Your Size
