When our own hangups get in the way of health
I did something pretty wild yesterday … for me at least.
I did something pretty wild yesterday … for me at least.
I went to the doctor. A regular doctor. After eight years. And in person.
It was fine. I’m fine. It was a checkup, and everything was normal.
“Do you know how incredibly privileged you are that you can do this?”
My 20-year-old has said this to me a number of times the last few months, usually at doctor’s offices or upon leaving them, because she doesn’t have this privilege. She suffers from a number of health issues that require regular visits to specialists.
Most people don’t have this kind of privilege. The one that allows them to go for years without seeing a regular doctor for checkups, to wait until they can find a HAES-aligned doctor (nearby and who takes insurance), and then to wait another six months after making the appointment to do the visit. For those not familiar with the term, HAES stands for Health at Every Size, and it’s a label for a very small subset of doctors who practice weight-neutral health care.
She’s right. I am privileged, but the truth is I’ve also been incredibly selfish.
That was my big takeaway when I read the first chapter of
’s “Unshrinking” a few weeks ago (here’s my review of it). That wasn’t her intention, of course. It was about all the ways people in larger bodies receive poorer health care—through bias, neglect, and outright discrimination—sometimes with deadly consequences. But in reading that chapter, I realized I had been putting my health at risk for years because of my hang-ups with my body.These were some of the stats Manne cited that got to me:
“Some 45 percent of women across the size spectrum said in a 2016 survey that they had delayed going to the doctor until they lost weight.
In another study, the fear of being not only weighed but fat shamed was disproportionately likely to make fatter women avoid going to the doctor.”
My ingrained feelings of shame over my body, fear of being weighed and general mistrust in the established medical system had made me avoid it completely.
By the way, all these years with all these hangups I had always been straight-sized (or pregnant). And I have never faced a single negative remark about my weight at a doctor’s office. I have never been “prescribed weight loss,” nor have I been told that I need to lose weight in order to be treated for something else. And I know this is not the case for many—if not most—people in larger bodies. Another example of my privilege. This kind of bias is rampant within the weight-biased medical community, and it’s why I sought a HAES-aligned provider to begin with.
Researcher
does amazing work on this topic, and just last week she shared printable cards to take to the doctor if you’re a larger-bodied person seeking shame-free and weight-stigma-free healthcare. And if you want a small peek into the ways people in larger bodies get shorted on health care, she sums it up here. Manne’s “Unshrinking” also provides an exhaustive look at all the ways weight bias and stigma affects us.My avoidance of docs was weight-related.
It was all about the dread of being publicly weighed. Back in my dieting days, I took all sorts of measures to combat it, including restricting my food intake on the days leading up to my in-person doctor’s visits, and wearing my lightest clothing and shoes to appointments. It was also about the shame of knowing my actual weight, since in my weighing myself days, I had many rules I followed to insure the “lightest” reading. I always did it first thing in the morning, naked, before I ate, after I had peed and by positioning the scales just so in that one spot on hard floor that would provide the best results. After a doctor’s visit, I would be at least 5 pounds over my morning weigh-in, and then I’d be living with shame and disgust for myself for days after.
{deep breath}
Yep, I went on for years like this.
{deep breath}
I should clarify that I have received medical care over the last eight years, but it’s been limited to an integrative health practitioner who helps me manage my thyroid. Since the pandemic, I’ve only seen her virtually. And on the rare occasions when I’ve been sick, I’ve seen a telehealth doc or gone to a nearby walk-in clinic.
So, how was I after this visit?
Totally fine. It was anti-climatic. At the big weigh-in, I asked not to be told my weight, which after years of requesting this for my children, I knew would be no big deal. The nurse told me I could step on the scale backwards. The rest of the visit was perfectly pleasant. Toward the end, after I told the doc some of my history and that I was no longer dieting because of my daughters, I confessed that I had sought her out because she was HAES-aligned. And she said something to the effect of, “Yes, there’s a large body of research that shows weight has no bearing on health. And … you’re healthy.” So that was that. I got dressed, checked out and made a follow-up appointment for the same time next year.
Now this is the moment when I open the floor up to you. I don’t think I’m the only one who’s had these feelings about visiting the doctor or played these crazy games with the bathroom scales. If you’re willing to share, I’d love to hear.
