The Cheese Grates It: Hell No to your Weight Loss Surgery Bullshit

This was a reply to a thread over at This Is Thin Privilege regarding Netflix' "Insatiable" shit show as compared to what real fat people experience every day in a world that wants us thin or dead and doesn't much care which.

Doctors suck so much. My endocrine system is a dumpster fire. I have hypothyroidism, type 2 diabetes, PCOS, and some features of Cushing’s Syndrome, although I don’t have the stereotypical Cushing’s body, which is heavy on top with thin legs. My weight is evenly distributed. 

I’m only trained as low tier medical personnel, (licensed practical nurse), but you don’t need any medical training at all to know that doctors are full of shit. Knowing that every one of the health problems I described comes with weight gain and difficulty losing weight (in fairness, diabetes can go either way. Some people who develop type 2 diabetes start suddenly losing weight.) you would think they’d realize that hey, this person being fat is not a huge surprise. Let’s concentrate on treating their actual health issues instead of harassing them about their unsurprisingly fat body. But, nooooooo. If you think that’s what they’d do, you’d be wrong.

For twelve years, I went to a doctor who would give me the old “every health problem you have could be solved by losing weight” schpiel. I found a new doctor, and, initially, she seemed wonderful. I had issues addressed that weren’t being addressed previously. But then one day I came in for my quarterly appointment, and she asked if she could get my weight. As we had discussed during my initial appointment with her that I don’t want to be weighed, I gave a curt “no.” The appointment went downhill from there.

This woman does not have a large adult cuff and so can’t get an accurate blood pressure reading on me. I told her I’d let her know if my blood pressure was ever outside of the acceptable range (I take my own.) My triglycerides were slightly elevated (not surprising for someone with diabetes) so she was trying to push me to take a statin drug. I refused. This is a really hardcore medication, not something I want to take if not absolutely necessary. Then she tried to push this medication on me which has all kinds of digestive side effects. No thanks! I got off Metformin because it was making me queasy and I never knew if I just needed to pass gas, or if I was literally going to poop my pants. I don’t want to have to carry around a spare pair of pants, oddly enough, and I don’t want to have to wear Depends, oddly enough.

Then came the straw that broke the camel’s back. She told me that her patients who have had WLS are doing “very well.” I said, “yep, you doctors want us fat people thin or dead, and you don’t much care which.” She is a more effective doctor than my old doctor. I’ve had issues addressed that he never would have addressed. But he never in all his “lose weight, blah blah blah” rhetoric mentioned weight loss surgery. In fact, when I shut him down about the weight loss stuff, he’d just shrug and say “okay.” Plus, he had medical assistants who knew how to take a blood pressure. I don’t have the spoons to search for another doctor, so it’s a choice between overall more effective but a WLS cheerleader, or kind of half-assed but at least he isn’t pushing WLS.

Anyway, I resonate with what all of you are saying, and I hope this “Insatiable” mess fails so fucking hard. “Hurr hurr hurr fat people amirite” is not humor, and if you think it’s funny, you really need to check your shit. Fat bodies are not costumes. Millions of people live in fat bodies every day. I don’t give a flying fuck if anyone finds my fat body attractive or not. You still have to treat people whom you don’t find fuckable with basic common decency. Using fat people as the butt of jokes is not basic common decency in any way, shape, or form. Fuck this “Insatiable” shit, and fuck all the crap-ass fatphobic doctors out there who take a huge dump all over their “do no harm” oath whenever it comes to the happiness and well-being of fat people.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~