What a great video!
I'm not surprised - it comes from the Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity which is certainly the world's most important source of research on weight bias.
The video below is designed for health care providers but really speaks to everyone.
If you've got a chance today, please have a peek - especially if your work involves the care of patients with weight.
(remember, email subscribers click the title of the email to visit the blog and watch the video there)
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Thanks for posting this great video! It should be seen by medical students in University and even general praticionners.
ReplyDeleteI use to work in a short stay hospital with a doctor who was literally repulse by overweight or obese patient. She would use to ask us (I am a dietician) to make them loose weight fast during their stay at the hospital... patients that would usually stay 3 to 5 days after a surgery for example ! Clearly she had no clue. My group tried to explain to her many times that the priority during their stay would be to keep the nutritional needs optimal so the patients would recovert well without malnutrition. But still she would ask us to put them on a "diet" because they were fat.
I wonder if that doctor finally got to understand that her request was unrealistic but I am sure glad I am not working with her anymore. Maybe I should send her that video.
This video shows many good ways to improve care.
ReplyDeleteHowever I don't agree that a patient shouldn't be weighed. (Obviously the nasty comments were inappropriate.) Weighing is a diagnostic tool.
In the example of "good practice" the patient was not weighed. She believed she weighed the same, so she believed her current diet-exercise routine was keeping her weight steady.
In the "bad practice" example the patient was weighed. Her weight had increased. That is important. The diet-exercise routine which she believes is maintaining a steady weight is actually causing her to gain weight. It is asking for trouble to not address this directly.
People avoid many uncomfortable medical tests if they can. Would a doctor cancel blood tests if the patient didn't like needles? Not do a Pap smear if the patient was embarrassed?
The doctor should help the patient see weighing as a valuable (though not perfect) diagnostic tool to get feedback on how diet, exercise, and and other changes are working.
Then the patient wouldn't come back the next year weighing even more, because the routine she thought was keeping weight steady was actually causing weight gain.
This video shows many good ways to improve care.
ReplyDeleteHowever I don't agree that a patient shouldn't be weighed. (Obviously the nasty comments were inappropriate.) Weighing is a diagnostic tool.
In the example of "good practice" the patient was not weighed. She believed she weighed the same, so she believed her current diet-exercise routine was keeping her weight steady.
In the "bad practice" example the patient was weighed. Her weight had increased. That is important. The diet-exercise routine which she believes is maintaining a steady weight is actually causing her to gain weight. It is asking for trouble to not address this directly.
People avoid many uncomfortable medical tests if they can. Would a doctor cancel blood tests if the patient didn't like needles? Not do a Pap smear if the patient was embarrassed?
The doctor should help the patient see weighing as a valuable (though not perfect) diagnostic tool to get feedback on how diet, exercise, and and other changes are working.
Then the patient wouldn't come back the next year weighing even more, because the routine she thought was keeping weight steady was actually causing weight gain.
Thank you for sharing this video! I care for mostly obese folks with diabetes, and while watching I realized I too still have bias about some of my clients who are gaining or not losing. I never say anything that shows this bias...but I am thinking it. Now I realize that those thoughts may, in fact, be making my interactions not so kind or effective. Thank you for giving me a lesson in CARE!!
ReplyDeleteThanks very much for the video! When I was a sophmore in college, I went to the campus medical center to talk about my birth control pills. It said on the label that they may cause weight gain, and I was concerned that was happening.
ReplyDeleteThe nurse refused to admit that was happening. She said, "I think your weight gain is lifestyle based." and she wouldn't give me any other options.
She was partly right. I was living in residence, eating at the cafeteria 20 times a week, and they mainly served garbage. So I changed. I started eating the "salads" instead of the pastas, and the bagels instead of the homefries. My weight didn't change, but I ran out of money on my mealcard! The "healthy" foods were outrageously priced.
In my junior year, I moved out of residence and started cooking for myself. I exercised semi-regularly, and stopped eating red meat. My weight changed a little, but not much. Finally, I went off the birth control pills.
Six months after going off the birth control pills, I felt a change in my body. I wasn't retaining water the same or feeling as bloated. Without even trying, I lost 30 pounds within a year after stopping taking the pills.
If that nurse had have listened to my opinion and my thoughts, things could have turned out differently. I could have been healthier, sooner.
This explains why my father or I HAVE to accompany my mom when she is in the hospital for surgery for her arthritis. Several years ago I was with her, and the nurses would "forget" meals she was too drugged to request. I had to chase the meal cart down. We never let her stay in any hospital without one of us with her.
ReplyDeleteI must say that this video makes me value my general practitioner more than ever. He has always been courteous about my weight and even though my weight suddenly exploded over the last 2 years, he has been running the usual tests and managing my blood pressure. And though my blood values remain excellent at age 54, he gently introduced the possible consideration of weight loss surgery at my last appointment and that caused me to do a ton of research and to adopt a pre-WLS low carb life style and to join a gym. I am having a wonderful time and have lost 23 pounds in about 2 months. I credit his gentle approach with having set me on the right path without any appreciable stigma. Perhaps he has been too easy on me, but in the end this was my decision and I needed the time to arrive there.
ReplyDeleteFor some time, I considered becoming a doctor, and the main reason I didn't was because I see how doctors are often in the position of caring more about a patient's health than the patient him/herself. That has got to be frustrating and I can easily see how that would develop into a bias. Is it wrong? Sure. But hey, it's caused by the environment.
ReplyDeleteLinda K.