A growing number of doctors across a wide range of specialties have done away with routine patient weigh-ins...
What?! Why?
...in an effort to avoid weight shaming, but others argue this obscures a critical health metric.
Well, d'uh!
Patients are typically weighed as a first step at a routine doctor visit. But the standard practice is increasingly falling out of favor as more and more people say this makes others feel shame about their weight, which sends them running from the doctor, even when they’re having health issues.
Just not running very fast, or very far?
Nowadays, patients can deny consent to be weighed, even handing over business cards with bold lettering saying, ‘Please Don’t Weigh Me Unless It’s (Really) Medically Necessary. ' This is an effort from an eating disorder advocacy group to empower patients.
Doctors simply need to say 'It IS medically necessary' and point to the medical diploma on the wall.
Christ, what the hell is wrong with the medical profession? First they pandered to the men who think they are women, and now - despite the NHS obesity guidance that surrounds them in their working lives - they are pandering to the 'fat is beautiful' nutters too?
When the next pandemic hits, who is going to listen to a word they say?
11 comments:
"When the next pandemic hits, who is going to listen to a word they say?"
Who listens now? If I have some medical issue the first thing I do is look up on the internet about it, and research it there. I don't bother with a doctor because I know that they are bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical industry. Their only interest is how many drugs they can proscribe.
Maybe they should weigh all the NHS staff first?
Even weighing NHS staff one at a time would require some exceptional scales.
I think that this because of the high temperatures in which they work. Not much chance for exothermal calorie burning.
There’s a clue to the answer further down the article; the Mail has simply cut-and-pasted an American article into its UK edition complete with USA statistics and references to visiting ‘the doctor’s office’ and ‘the American Medical Association’.
I thought all that time-consuming weighing business at appointments sounded unlike the home life of our own dear NHS…
Actually I have often wondered why our doctors - unlike vets - seem to ignore bodyweight when prescribing common drugs like statins or PPIs; I can’t help feeling some of the nastier side-effects - and long-term damage - may be due to everyone being put on a standard adult dose calibrated to the requirements of the largest patients.
I'll be a contrarian and argue that posters rarely have any effect at all - except allowing those issuing the posters the luxury of feeling they have 'done something'.
As a corollary - if you look around a NHS hospital you will fine no end of noticeboards and displays with many, many, posters. Some of them will be well out of date and curling at the edges with no-one caring enough to 'curate' the posters.
That's weird. No doctor has ever asked to weigh me. Do they only do it for the fat whaps? In which case, it is medically necessary
I weigh myself on a regular basis. As long as I swim two or three times per week my weight stays stable at 75kilos. Because I'm a diabetic I'm weighed every year by the specialist nurse. My experience with diabetic nurses is that they are very well informed and helpful. They certainly don't prescribe pills as though they are on commission, if you can control your glucose levels with just diet and exercise that is positively encouraged.
Stonyground.
Very few people are actually required to have a medical examination (although, yes, it's necessary for some activities, e.g. working as a pilot I believe). Indeed doctors are supposed to treat patients against their wishes. So, in most cases, the doctor can just say "that's fine, goodbye then" if someone doesn't want to be weighed. On the occasions where medical examinations are required for the patient's job, if they haven't had their medical exam the employer should just be able to say "OK, you're fired".
Of course that leaves out the tangle of employment law and the unfortunate fact that the medical establishment is no longer trustworthy.
Off topic ... best to you, Julia, and your readers ... hope we survive 2025.
I have a yearly check up and I get weighed then. I also get weighed during doctors appointments when I'm in about certain illnesses. So I get weighed at least once a year and imo anyone that doesn't get weighed and get misdiagnosed can't really complain.
I visited the GP a couple of months ago following unexplained sudden-onset foot pain. He passed me over to one of the practice nurses who examined my abdomen (?) and prescribed a diuretic (?). Needless to say I've now changed GP.
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