THE WEIGHT YOU DON’T SEE
Nineteen dietitians! That’s how many my patient had consulted before she walked into my clinic today for a consultation for #weightloss. She had tried everything—calorie counting, portion control, intermittent fasting, medical diets, naturopathy, —only to be met with the same assumptions: She must be eating too much. She must not be trying hard enough. It must be her fault.
“On one single day, eight different people commented on her weight. That night, she couldn’t sleep. Not because of hunger or discomfort, but because their words replayed over and over in her mind, louder than any diagnosis she had ever received.”
As a doctor, I see this all too often. People think that obesity is all about #gluttony and #sloth. Unfortunately, society has reduced obesity to an oversimplified equation: Eat less, move more. But if it were that easy, wouldn’t obesity have disappeared from our world by now?
The reality is far more complex. Obesity is a chronic, progressive condition influenced by genetics, hormones, metabolism, medications, gut microbiota, mental health, and more. Stress, sleep deprivation, and medical conditions all play a role. Food is just one of the many factors.
Yet, people tend to cling to this oversimplified narrative. They love to offer unsolicited advice without understanding the struggles that a person with obesity goes through. They don’t see the crushing frustration of doing everything right and still not seeing results. They don’t know what it’s like to wake up every day in a body that everyone feels entitled to judge. They don’t know the exhaustion of carrying not just extra weight, but the #shame and #stigma that is added to it.
I wish people would stop assuming. I wish they would see the person before the weight. And most of all, I wish they would understand—sometimes, the heaviest burden is not the body itself, but the weight of their words.
#ObesityAwareness #StopTheStigma #HealthNotJudgment #MoreThanFood #ChronicCondition #EndWeightBias #CompassionOverCriticism #MindYourWords #ObesityIsComplex #SeeThePerson #Bariatric Surgery #DrAparnaGovilBhasker