Overweight and Working in Healthcare

I work in health care, but am not patient interfacing.

Looking at patients coming in is part of my motivation for losing weight. I can't do anything about my genetics, and some people have rotten luck and get some c"$py diseases....but others are caused by their lifestyle. I figure I should make the best out of the body I was given - end of. No more ifs ands buts, could have, should have, would have, ....Just do it. This isn't about me judging others and their lifestyle choices but trying to ensure that mine get the best out of me.

I've noticed my GP has put on weight over the last few years. But he's just a bit over weight. I would struggle a bit more with someone that was very obese. But they're human too, work long hours, often shift work, mine isn't to judge, but to focus on me and myself.

I have been an RN for a decade now. I have always had a normal BMI. I have worked with ALOT of very overweight nurses, it seems like weight issues are more predominant in nursing (would be interesting if someone did some research on that!). I don't judge a nurse on her weight, I judge them on their performance. Your just as lightly to meet a hopeless skinny nurse as you are a heavy one.

I do feel there is a bit of double standard. Unless I am dying I will not go to the doctor. The first thing out of his mouth is "you need to lose weight", I am very aware that I need to lose but it is not as easy as putting it on. Just once I would like the Dr. to comment on the few I have lost.

Only if the are over weight and preach to me about losing it myself.. I work with a gal who is over weight and going to graduate from nursing school this fall. she has realized that she would promote bad health practices and is currently working on exersise and eating healthier. She has lost quite a bit so far and I respect her for it. She is a walking inspiration to me as she does hair 2 days a week, goes to school and has 2 kids. Being a single mom she also has to take her kids to sports practices etc. I figure as busy as she is and can still fit in exersise I have no excuse.

Obesity has many causes. Advertisements, cultural background, environmental issues, hereditary traits and social expectations, among others, are putting equal pressure on both medical staff and population. Maybe even more so if I judge by most of the comments I read here.

Doctors and nurses may know what to do (and so do I, don't you?) to be healthy but it doesn't mean it is any less difficult for them than it is for you and me. If an obese doctor or nurse would tell me to lose weight, it would at least mean that they understand first hand what my problem is and that they can relate with me. It doesn't mean in the least that they are any less good or competent! Not at all!!! Come on! We don't judge a book by its cover!

My sister has struggled with her weight her whole life and has always been overweight-she had no problem getting a job as an RN, but she works at a nursing home so I don't know if that makes a difference?

My doctor is a normal weight and the nurses are either normal weight or just slightly overweight. My husband's doctor is a big guy-but he's really tall so he carries the extra weight well. There are a couple really overweight/obese nurses at that office, but it doesn't bother my husband at all so I don't think it's a big deal. Now, if I was seeing a specialist in the nutrition field and he/she was overweight, then that would be a different story. But otherwise it's not on my radar.

I worked in the Veterinary field a few years ago, 3 to 11 shift at an Emergency 24 hour animal hospital.
There were 2 of us on a shift with 1 assistant and maybe one person in kennel to treat a book of 75 to 140ish patients on a any given day.
We ate like hell, drank like crazy and smoked like chimneys (obviously not during our shift but certainly after almost every shift).

At this particular hospital, the doctors saw the patients, and sent back pets along with medical charts full of diagnostics that we were expected to do as well as treat the hospitalized patients. This may include radiographs, workups with full labs, pneumocystograms, unblocking urinary cats, barium studies, phlebotomy of exotics (reptiles, snakes, turtles, birds etc) installing IV catheters, starting meds & calculating dosages/drip rates etc. stabilizing traumatic injuries, casts etc.

Working this type of stressful job (the management) not to mention the actual job itself as I and many others, did multiple double shifts. As the years went on, I became more and more Insulin resistant, probably a combination of genetics & work. During that time, I'd watched my middle gradually widen.

I remember going to a doctor for routine medical check up & I also had what I believed was a nail fungus on my right hand. Not unusual, given my job and the fact that I had my nails done from time to time.

I asked this skinny, frizzy gray haired hippy type lady (who was my doctor) about the fact that I went to the gym 5 days a week & took classes as well as weight training 3x weekly and I still can't seem to lose any weight.

She did a complete medical exam, looked at everything, even made me take my socks off to look at my toes etc. She told me to get a book called Food for Life or Eating to Live or some such bull$hit...I remember being shocked that all she had to say on the subject was go get and read this book.

Of course I dismissed her as a quack. Whatever, I got the Rx for my fingernail fungus & I was ok with that.
A couple of days later, she called me & said my fasting blood glucose was a little high, 109 (this was 2007 or so) and she wanted me to come in to do a glucose tolerance test.

I said I'd come in but thought, piffle.

So what? She never explained what the indications may be and why I needed to do the test. I didn't give it a second thought because when I tried to talk to her about my inability to lose weight, she dismissed me with the dumb hippy book that I did purchase, if I remember correctly but it was a vegetarian diet and had some kind of weird cult-like philosophy (at least in my 30something view at the time).

Here I am some 6 years later, T2 Diabetic. Diagnosis was an incidental finding when I went to see a doctor for abdominal pain. Mine is a cautionary tale. I did numerous BG curves on cats, regulated hundreds of dogs, and treated a multitude of pets with T1 Diabetes. If this health care professional had only explained to me that she wanted to rule out/in Insulin Resistance, I wouldn't be where I am today.

I have been an RN for a decade now. I have always had a normal BMI. I have worked with ALOT of very overweight nurses, it seems like weight issues are more predominant in nursing (would be interesting if someone did some research on that!). I don't judge a nurse on her weight, I judge them on their performance. Your just as lightly to meet a hopeless skinny nurse as you are a heavy one.

I agree. As a patient, I see it this way. I've been fortunate to have excellent medical care for a rare genetic cardiomyopathy. I imagine that has "distracted" me from judging the size of the health care providers.

As a patient I don't think twice about providers who are overweight. Never really noticed really..