Fat shaming is not the answer to our obesity crisis

IF you’re fat, you can expect unacceptably low levels of medical care and widespread discrimination. But we wouldn’t treat people with any other health issue as second rate citizens, writes Jill Poulsen.

YOU’D be better off getting cancer than getting fat if you expect decent healthcare and even a shred of sympathy when dealing with a life-threatening disease.

It shouldn’t come as news to anyone that being fat hasn’t been in vogue since Rembrandt was still painting but research released this week shows that obese people are as welcome in hospitals as they are on Instagram.

The research, published in the Clinical Obesity Journal, found the level of care for seriously overweight patients would not be accepted if it were applied to those with cancer or heart disease.

It has prompted medical specialists to call for an overhaul of obesity medicine after it showed patients suffered long wait times, a lack of specialist treatment and huge out-of-pocket costs.

Patients even suffered the humiliation at some health facilities of not fitting into waiting room chairs.

If you think the fact a group of people is getting second rate health care is shocking then you obviously haven’t read the comments under the story written about the research.

A woman named Joy, somewhat ironically, says she thinks not fitting in a doctor’s chair should be the wakeup call needed for someone to magically lose the extra hundred odd kilos they’ve been carrying.

A recent study has shown overweight patients experience lower levels of care than people with cancer or heart disease. (Pic: iStock)

Why haven’t the experts thought of this sooner, Joy? You absolute genius! Move over Michelle Bridges because this could be the next big thing, just Joy taking around chairs people can’t fit into, embarrassing them and hey presto “wake up call”.

As if the only reason they hadn’t lost weight sooner was because they didn’t realise they were fat.

“I can’t remember a fat kid in my class, school and only one overweight in my tertiary education days,” Joy continued.

Being fat is so unappealing to Joy she has mentally calculated the BMI of people since she was a kid and tucked the results away in her memory.

She didn’t realise how useful this skill would become until she saw an article about obese patients not getting the treatment they deserve and give everyone a quick scientific analysis on whether there were more fat people then or now.

In Joy, another commenter, Marilyn, found a kindred spirit.

“Obesity is not a disease,” Marilyn, who obviously has a medicine degree, tells us.

“Time to take full responsibility for stuffing your faces with food all the time. Own it.”

All this prompted me to look at the commentary on other stories that discussed eating disorders or health problems associated with poor diet and exercise to see what the attitude was.

While there were misinformed opinions all over the shop like — anorexia can only be the result of poor self-esteem — the really hateful comments were reserved for obese people.

Online commenters have no problem with lashing out at obese people. (Pic: iStock)

You can be a victim of cancer, a victim of bulimia, a victim of depression but nobody can be a victim of obesity. Of course anyone suffering with any of the aforementioned conditions might not identify as a victim at all but that won’t stop us deciding whether you’re worthy of our sympathy or not.

There are few groups left that are so widely discriminated against and thought to be deserving of contempt than those who take up too much room on a plane.

The Cancer Council says around 37,000 cancer cases in Australia could be prevented each year largely through lifestyle change. But could you imagine someone sticking their head out of a car window and screaming insults at a cancer patient?

“Regret smoking a few cigs when you were younger now don’t you?!”

“Just couldn’t stop yourself tanning, could you? So greedy to be bronze you just had to keep going.”

“I bet losing your hair was the wake-up call you needed.”

The AMA says that obesity is Australia’s biggest public health challenge.

More than one million Australians are severely obese, with a BMI of 40 or higher, and that number is growing.

Australian Medical Association Queensland president Dr Bill Boyd says eating habits and attitudes start when people are very young.

“It is in these formative years that we need to start to win our battle of the bulge,” he said.

But I fear that if our attitudes, in the medical community and the wider community — towards people having serious struggles with maintaining a healthy weight for whatever reason (genetic, emotional, biological) the problem can only get worse.

So the next time you think it’s your job to decide whether an illness exists or deserves your compassion or “tax payer’s money”, know that you’re the one in need of a wake up call.
Jill Poulsen is a Courier-Mail columnist.

@jill_poulsen