Your doctor says you're obese!

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  • sub10orbust
    sub10orbust Posts: 706 Member
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    would post thread about it on mfp
  • AZ_Danny
    AZ_Danny Posts: 50 Member
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    If I'm not mistaken "obese" IS the actual medical term. It does imply a certain level of being overweight. Quite frankly I don't get offended when I'm called obese. Or fat. Or lard-butt... because I talk about it openly and quite often joke about it myself. Last time I went to the doctor I went in for a skin infection. The doctor essentially said "ok, here's some antibiotics.... now let's talk about your weight and your blood pressure.". I was put on blood pressure meds at the age of 27, which was probably a larger eye-opener than my actual weight

    Sometimes hearing you're running to the grave is difficult to deal with, but your doctor doesn't say it because he/she likes offending you. You're doctor says it because you need to hear it.. because it's true
  • Velum_cado
    Velum_cado Posts: 1,608 Member
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    If I'm there for advice about my weight, or for something directly related to my weight, bring it up, by all means. If not, don't. Simples.
  • C12254
    C12254 Posts: 198
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    Ive never been called obese by my doctor but I know I am. Every obese/over weight person KNOWS. Suck it up and do something about it! If you were happy with your life and not ashamed and didn't care- you wouldnt be offended in the first place. Its your doctors job to help keep/get you healthy. They arent out of line to suggest you lose some weight or to tell you that yes, you ARE fat! And they aren't just being rude for the heck of it! So take it as its intended for, and move on!
  • Topsking2010
    Topsking2010 Posts: 2,245 Member
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    I was obese and lost 50 pounds.


    Get your butt moving!!
  • ktsmom430
    ktsmom430 Posts: 1,100 Member
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    Well, sometimes the truth hurts. If you didn't already know it, who better than your dr. to enlighten you?
    It may hurt your feelings, but you can not change the fact and if you do not like bluntness in a dr, find a new one that will sugar coat it for you, or do something about it, and lose the weight and become not obese.
  • heyydanie
    heyydanie Posts: 103 Member
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    I agree, I think it's all a matter of how the doctor says it. And I think they need to take into account their relationship with each patient.

    For example, I'd had the same doctor from the time I was 2 until the time I was 19. I only switched because I moved to another state. I'd grown up with him, so during my yearly check-ups at around the 13/14 year age mark, when he was asking the usual questions, and introduced the "are you sexually active?" question, I was able to just say to him "have you MET my father!?" He laughed, turned to the nurse who had to stand in the room since I was a female, and said "yeah, mark that one as a no. Her father is in the waiting room, not jail."

    So, when he told me I was falling into the obese category, he pulled out his charts, marked where I should be, marked where I was, and just said "this needs to change. You're medically obese."

    I was upset, not that he called me obese, but that I was. I knew I was overweight, but OBESE?? But it made me realize I needed to live healthier.

    If a random person came up to me and called me obese, I'd be offended.
  • alliemarie77
    alliemarie77 Posts: 378 Member
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    Going to my Dr actually helped me. I knew I was over weight, and needed to lose weight. I just didn't know how over weight I was. While her telling me that I was obese was tough to grasp, I wasn't angry or mad at her. My question to myself was "How in the world did you let yourself get like this? How did you not know you were this big?" The best thing she could have ever said to me was when she called a few days later. "You are pre-diabetic. If you don't lose some weight, and start eating healthy you will become a diabetic. I am referring you to a nutritionist." At that moment I cried.... At that moment I decided that I had to do this. At that moment my lifestyle changed forever! Was I mad at the Dr? No. Why should I be?
    I hadn't been to the Dr for a routine check up in years. I hadn't taken care of myself. I was to busy to take care of myself. So, with that being said.... It wasn't anyone's fault but my own.
  • moontyrant
    moontyrant Posts: 160 Member
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    I was annoyed when my doctor browbeated me for ten minutes because I was fat. "What are you doing to change your diet?"
    The answer was "nothing, I'm ten and this should be a conversation you have with my parents." He didn't bother talking to my parents, though.
    I would have been fine with "According to these measurements, you're obese and here are your options." I was not okay with "Eat a salad or something. Drinking juice instead of soda? WRONG! JUICE HAS CALORIES!" My feelings weren't really hurt, but I didn't receive any new information that day. I knew I was fat already, but I didn't know there were ways of becoming less fat outside surgery because I was a pudgy child in a pudgy family.
    I didn't even know you could count calories until last November.
  • 1princesswarrior
    1princesswarrior Posts: 1,242 Member
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    This is so interesting. My doctor is very tactful yet blunt with me. But I have a lot is issues she has to help me deal with, obesity is not the biggest one. But she would bring up my weight everytime I saw her, except when I was suicidal. She would say things like "at some point we need to discuss your weight and come up with a plan", like we are a team. Very supportive. Knowing me, she also knew I wouldn't do anything until I was ready but she always kept it as one of her priorities for me. Now that I be filled her in on all that I'm doing to lose weight we are working together and she's closely tracking my progress. Its great to have a medical professional in your corner. Oh, and she absolutely loves my approach of eating better and lots of activity.
  • StarChanger
    StarChanger Posts: 605 Member
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    My symptoms at the time were those of fibromyalgia and she didn't even test for it.

    Just so you, and others, know....there is no "test" for fibromyalgia. It is a "disease of exclusion"...meaning they can find no other explanation for your symptoms.
  • Ribena145
    Ribena145 Posts: 201 Member
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    Um, maybe we all wouldn't be overweight/obese, whatever, if we all didn't try to freshen up what we're really trying to say (don't get me wrong - I don't mean people should be saying things in a hateful manner). Maybe we really need to hear those words no matter that we may feel hurt by them. I've had people say things to me and it pushed me to determination. I've also had doctors that weren't interested in helping me at all and I felt defeated! I'd rather try than not try.


    People don't tell us things so as not to hurt us and look where it go us all - here, trying desperately to regain our lives and health. It always makes me think of the story "The Emperor's New Clothes" by Hans Christian Anderson.
  • StarChanger
    StarChanger Posts: 605 Member
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    If I'm not mistaken "obese" IS the actual medical term.

    Yes, it is. (and now, there are even CLASSES within obesity...class 1, 2, 3, and the "super-morbidly obese" with BMIs over 45)

    That is my point. People who get offended when their medical professional gives them a "diagnosis".
  • roxweb
    roxweb Posts: 19 Member
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    Personally I have been pretty upset with doctors who have told me my weight was "not" a problem, especially after I specifically would say to them "well I really should lose weight".

    Over the past few years I've wanted doctors to say more, like "you realize, your health will really suffer as you age if you remain at this weight" or "do you know what the dangers are for a woman your age at your weight?" SOMETHING!

    Isn't it a doctor's responsibility to inform their patients of looming health issues, especially ones so obvious!?
  • Faye_Anderson
    Faye_Anderson Posts: 1,495 Member
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    Not True! I was offended when my doctor told me i was obese. Mainly because I looked in the mirror and knew I was overweight, fat .... but not obese, it did upset me, more so as my doctor didnt tell me my bmi, and so I figured it out for myself, and I was only one notch into obesity ... so a fine line between over weight and obese, I think my doctor should of explained this all a bit better for me.

    So you were obese, your doctor told you that you were obese but you got offended because even though the BMI scale said you were obese you wanted your doctor to call you overweight?
  • MyJourney1960
    MyJourney1960 Posts: 1,133 Member
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    I knew I was obese before my doc mentioned it. If someone is really obese and only gets clued in when the doc states the fact, they're kidding themselves.
    I think that I KNEW i was fat and i KNEW i was very overweight, but somehow the word "obese" (in my mind) applied to those really really obese women we saw in disney world who could barely move and had layers and layers of fat all over. That just wasn't ME. I was fat, yes, but I went to the gym, i ate healthy foods, i was active. so i didn't put the two together. One day i saw the word "OBESE" on a blood test paper - and i thougth "what? me?"

    I think it's the doctors responsibility to state the facts, just like "you tested positive for strep here's the antibiotics", so there is "you are obese AND HERE IS WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT".
  • recoveryjunky
    recoveryjunky Posts: 162 Member
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    I am having a little trouble seeing why no one can understand being at least a little hurt by hearing that... I was a little bigger in high school but gained a TON in a short amount of time because I was in a car accident. I ate the same things but couldn't move. It took me a good amount of time before I realized I was gaining weight and by then it had been about 60lbs. It wasn't so much about me being obese, it was me wallowing in the fact that I'll never have a working back again. Being fat is often linked to something else so when it gets brought up, sometimes you are forced to face those other things.

    Also, the first dr to say that to my was a physical therapist and he literally said, "You're fat and you need to do something about it." I will never forget that. He made me cry so hard. There was nothing professional about that.
  • LoseWithLaurie
    LoseWithLaurie Posts: 64 Member
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    I am SO sick of this!!!! Being obese is NEVER healthy. It is ALWAYS bad. Why do people want to make it about ANYYHING other than that??
    I had a great doctor. The sweetest lady ever. And she never once brought up my MORBID OBESITY. Maybe if she had, I would have dropped the weight 7 or 8 years sooner, maybe not. But, it's a health professional's JOB to help us become healthy.
    I can tell you if she had said I was obese, I would have been upset and I may have focused that anger/hurt on her. But that would have been MY error, NOT HERS!

    People aren't really hurt that someone says they're obese. They're upset because they ARE obese and they can no longer live with their heads in the sand.

    It's easier to get offended and complain about the "cruel" or "unfair" treatment than it is to get off your rear, so to speak, and get healthy. Anyone CAN turn their lives around...don't be offended. Be committed to changing your life:)
  • lovelyx091
    lovelyx091 Posts: 217 Member
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    People aren't really hurt that someone says they're obese. They're upset because they ARE obese and they can no longer live with their heads in the sand.

    THIS.

    I knew I was fat, overweight, but being told I was obese- morbidly, even, was hurtful. Not because of the term used, but because of what I was... what I am. I always dreaded going to the doctor for the simple fact that I'd have to face the scale and such. Now I don't get like that anymore, because I know I'm doing a lot better. I do wish I had listened a lot sooner, but better late than never.
  • whierd
    whierd Posts: 14,025 Member
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    I really don't get it either. If you're fat, you know you're fat. If you think that everyone else doesn't know you're fat, then you're delusional. It is also why I don't understand why people, women especially, are so afraid of telling people their weight. It isn't like the number is going to make someone look at you differently.

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