The demands of a fat person

While perusing the internet I commonly run across a variety of additional articles I would otherwise never read.  Today I was browsing a forum and came across a link to What do fat people want?

This fantastic webpage informs me of the vast sweeping changes the fat “community” wants the United States to change just for them.

WE WANT fat children to grow up safe from ridicule and physical violence. Such hate crimes rob fat children of their self-esteem and their hope for the future. To this end, we want schools, social service agencies, and courts to recognize, and help alleviate, the socially condoned mistreatment of fat children.

This is the only one I agree with.  I’m not going to stop thinking the way I think, but everyone is entitled to go to school and work without being ridiculed.  There is a solution though; lose some weight.  We won’t have to change any laws then.

WE WANT to be healthy. We also want people to understand that being healthy does not necessarily mean being thin.

WE WANT doctors who focus on our health and well-being, not on weight loss.

WE WANT doctors to stop pushing dangerous treatments: diets, diet pills, liposuction, and weight-loss surgery. As the New England Journal of Medicine said recently, “The cure for obesity [sic] may be worse than the condition.”

WE WANT diagnostic equipment that will accommodate us: MRIs, CAT scans, ultrasound machines, some X-ray machines, etc.

First, I love how they conveniently left out what they meant by “recently.”  This article was published nearly 9 years ago on October 17, 1999 in the New England Journal of Medicine.  The problem of obesity has drastically increased since then and the way that doctors treat this problem has also changed greatly.

Second, health and well-being in many ways is linked to being at a healthy weight.  By saying they want hospital equipment that accomodates them, I believe this article is relating to very large people.  You can be slightly overweight and still live a relatively healthy life.  It is when you are obese and weigh 30 pounds or more overweight.  In order to not fit into hospital equipment you must be horribly overweight and therefore probably suffer from serious medical problems.  Increased risks of heart disease, painful swelling of joints and diabetes are all problems that occur when you are this overweight.  Doctors want you to be healthy and helping give you a variety of options to get to that point is their job.  There is always eating less and exercising.

WE WANT health insurance companies to stop denying coverage based on weight.

WE WANT surgeons to stop refusing to operate on us unless we lose weight, just because they do not have the skill, the tools, or the technique to work with large bodies. (Ironically, sometimes the only surgery a fat person can obtain is mutilating weight-loss surgery.)

I don’t know if you knew this, but insurance companies and surgeons need to make money.  If an insurance company takes on an obese person they must either deny them or charge them a much higher rate.  This is because they are a health risk.  Obese people have a variety of health conditions that arise just because of being obese. Surgeons think the same way.  If you have a high risk of having a complication on the operating table they are not going to operate on you.  They are just thinking about money.

WE WANT the media to stop quoting inaccurate and spurious statistics about fat mortality rates. This practice only reinforces the prejudice we face.

For example, the oft-quoted figure of 300,000 fat-related deaths in America is based on a study (McGinnis and Foege, JAMA, Nov. 10, 1993) that linked these deaths to sedentary lifestyle and poor diet, not to weight!

What do 99% of obese people have in common?  If you guessed a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet then you win.  This would be the same as if the tobacco company said, “cigarette deaths aren’t caused by cigarettes, it’s the lung cancer that gets you.”  The two come hand in hand.

WE WANT the FDA to test weight-loss drugs thoroughly for safety before approving them for use by millions of consumers who are all-too-eager for a miracle pill, even when it is life-threatening. Beyond that, we question the value or wisdom of seeking medical cures for social problems in the first place.

No one is given medication without being told the risks.  You are not forced to take any pill or have any surgery done on you.  It’s not the FDA’s responsibility to make choices for you.

WE WANT doctors and health professionals to heed the New England Journal of Medicine’s January 1, 1998 editorial, “Losing Weight-An Ill-Fated New Year’s Resolution,” when it says:

“Doctors should do their part to help end discrimination against overweight [sic] people in schools and workplaces. We should also speak out against the public’s excessive infatuation with being thin and the extreme, expensive, and potentially dangerous measures taken to attain that goal. Many Americans are sacrificing their appreciation of one of the great pleasure of life–eating–in an attempt to look like our semi-starved celebrities. Countless numbers of our daughters and increasingly many of our sons are suffering immeasurable torment in fruitless weight-loss schemes and scams, and some are losing their lives.”

No one is telling the obese people to become wafer thin.  This article is not about discrimination.  It’s about how stupid and crazy diets are.  People just need to learn that they don’t have to eat everything around them.  Eat so you are full and eat healthy.

Stop eating so much. You’ll save money, feel better, look better and overall have a better life.  Plus then you wouldn’t have to write such dumb articles that cause me so much anger.