GPH: Obesity | MyQMUL

I believe that obesity attracts massive social stigma ; fuelled by a celebrity-driven culture, society can be quite ruthless when it focuses its sights on fat people. And it comes from all levels of society too ; when they aren't simply labelled as lazy people who eat too much, they are seen as a drain on healthcare resources, with some even suggesting they should pay for their treatment!

Sadly, even amongst a number of doctors, they are viewed as non-compliant when they are unable to lose weight after successive consultations, ignoring the fact that there usually are valid underlying physiological and indeed societal triggers to their condition. The way they are treated in public could also predispose them to mental health issues, which have implications in themselves.

I am not saying the will to change is completely out of their hands (if that is what they want, because surely this society prides itself on 'freedom of choice'), but I think we should collectively be more empathetic and less judgemental in our approaches when dealing with people who are obese.

Re: Obesity

by Lucy Caroline Eastgate - Tuesday, 2 October 2012, 4:21 PM

I agree that obesity attracts a social and medical stigma but is it that sometimes a medical challenge is mistaken as a stigma too? I mean that in the world of healthcare, it is not so much stigmatised but it is seen as a medical issue for which an individual is the key to their own treatment? For something that is more often than not, whether there are psychological contributions or not, caused by the consumption of too many calories and too little movement. The risks associated to this are massive, including higher risk of heart disease and diabetes, as well as many others. Yes it is probably frustrating to a clinician whose patient is not losing weight despite all they try, but the biggest problem here is the motivation and individual approach of both parties. With a rapidly growing percent of the population now being diagnosed as 'obese', joint efforts need to be made on how to help those who want to lose weight. In schools there are mass NHS initiatives being introduced to try to reduce childhood obesity, some more effective than others.

In society, people are judgemental and cruel to those classed as 'fat' in their eyes, and sadly this has a massive negative impact on those who want or need to lose weight. But in the world of medicine are clinicians right to be frustrated by the increase in rates of obesity? Is the lack of time and money available to use on preventative medicine and education a massive challenge to these increased rates? It seems that more and more, the responsibility is passed on to the patient to try to deal with the problem because of these restrictions and medical staff don’t see the efforts or improvements, they only see the increasing consequences of obesity.