Why are nurses obese?

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Replies

  • kbmnurse
    kbmnurse Posts: 2,484 Member
    Because they are so dam busy taking care of everyone else it leaves little time for their own health. Plus listening to a bunch of PIA patients wears on you and makes you want comfort food! There you asked. :sick:
  • mfarmer88
    mfarmer88 Posts: 25 Member
    Here's a great tip...you have the ability to CHOOSE your health care professionals. Go ahead and ask for a skinny nurse and see what kind of care you get. :grumble:
    [/quote]


    Yes! Love this!
  • waterlily186
    waterlily186 Posts: 2
    Answer....eat me! **** off!!.....I'm sick and tired of the bigotry toward "over weight" people and "nurses". Fat is one of the new blacks. I'm 61 y/o and I am overweight. The reason being is that I have been working s a nurse for 43 years now. You have no idea how much cortisol is circulating in a nurses blood all day every day causing the body to hoard every calorie so it can be used later as the stress never stops! That is the reason. No breaks for 12-14 hours to drink water or pee. No lunch break so you have to order out and stuff the stale pizza in your mouth and re-enter your pts. room while still chewing so you won't faint. Then the heartburn is unbearable and you have a stomach ache all day. Then you pee your pants from the bladder spasms you are having from the burn of concentrated urine leading to a bladder infection!! On your day off all you can do is sprawl in a state of shock at what you have gone through the days before and try to get a hold of the doctor for an rx for your bladder infection from not drinking enough water. Then you have to rest to get well in time to go back at it after your day or days off. Why do people hate nurses? It seems that the general consensus is that nurses are not even human beings. You know that is absolutely right. We are god damn warriors!!!! Guess that's why we get the big bucks > $100,000- 150,000/yr. Low income? Moron. Could be a bit of fast food, stopping on the way home in the dark at 8-9pm because you are too tired to "fix" something that may be good for you. Ahhh you say, plan ahead. Read the above!!
  • waterlily186
    waterlily186 Posts: 2
    Or there's the times that you go on a strict diet and lose 30-50 pounds in 3 months. Yeah done that several times. Wow, how nice that you can work like that on 500-800 calories a day. Interestingly though as soon as you begin to eat "normal" the weight comes right back on. A weak lazy glutton could never do that feat! This page is full of some real morons and I'm with the others that would let the skinny moron die that does not want a "fat" nurse. **** off and die!! Gosh none of my patients in 43 years have thought that my appearance had anything to do with my excellent care. Even at 61 I can still do the most rigorous work. Some of the morons on this page criticizing nurses have probably never even worked and are getting health care on my taxes!!!
  • TheFairyJester
    TheFairyJester Posts: 93
    i am not a nurse but i am going to go with funky long hours making it difficult to eat right.
  • myogibbs
    myogibbs Posts: 182
    My husband is a nurse & yes, he does only work 3 days a week, but he has to plan for the nights he works by staying up all night the night before his shift, so he can sleep during the day & be ready to work the night. Night shift nurses compete against Circadian rhythm & pretty much never just work a simple 12 hour shift. They also get compassion fatigue. Yes, that really happens. So, they get little time to eat, so they eat quickly...even when they aren't working, they get little sleep, which contributes to obesity & they stay tired, so most use that as an excuse not to work out. I am not saying it can't be done, but there is a LOT more that goes into "only working 3 days a week".
  • blytheandbonnie
    blytheandbonnie Posts: 3,275 Member
    Oops, wait...
  • blytheandbonnie
    blytheandbonnie Posts: 3,275 Member
    I don't see how you can work in the medical field, and be obese/overweight. That has always bugged me. How are you going to tell others they need to eat less junk, when you're eating horrible things yourself? And none of that ''I work long hours'' crap. There's something called calorie control.

    Because you don't go to a healthcare professional to be judged. You go to get honesty about what's good for you and your body. If my chubby nurse doesn't tell me to lose weight because she feels like a hypocrite, she's letting my appointment become about her issues and not mine, and she's not doing her job.

    The reason why there are obese nurses is because knowledge =/= ability. The formula to lose weight is pretty simple, it doesn't take medical training. Actually doing it is the tough part, whether you're a nurse, truck driver, SAHM/D, or fast food employee. Some are better at it than others.

    More excuses. I never said they couldn't give their honest opinion, but they should live by what they teach. If you're going to spend money on school, and energy on your job, you should live by them. I get that people don't have the time to cook a healthy dinner, but that doesn't mean you should pig out on big macs and giant fries, everyday. You can get a grilled chicken salad from the same place, without dressing.

    I also don't get how they work long tired hours, yet claim they don't have much time to eat, yet are still able to pack down more than 2000 calories a day. Why don't they pack away fruit if they need a quick snack? Why do they need a snickers bar? It doesn't add up.

    Your making assumptions on what you clearly know nothing about.

    How am I making assumptions? Are these people getting fat by eating fruit? :|

    Most nurses that have replies on this subject have tried to explain that already -is it an excuse ? Yes we all have excuses or we would all be perfect. They all didn't say they gorged out on Big Macs those are not in any vending machines I know about. The stress levels , the hours they work, the self all-mighty people they have to deal with, these are all factors and unless you have spent any time in their world it might be understandable that you don't understand. Judging them with out actually being there is another thing all-together.

    At the end of the day if I was in the emergency room with my guts laying all around I sure would'nt care if the nurse weighed 300lbs or if they had a cigar hanging out their *kitten*. I would care about that they knew what they were doing and that they cared about what they are doing.

    Well that's good for you, if you don't care, but for me I wouldn't want that.
    You had better get a medic alert bracelet that says "No fat people touch me" So when you're unconscious the doctor will know to make sure only thin, fit medical staff can attend to you.
  • Jersey_Devil
    Jersey_Devil Posts: 4,142 Member
    OP- you have such an inferiority complex that you have to degrade other people? Does that make you feel better about yourself? Focus on yourself and stop hating on others.
  • RickNeedzToGetShreaded
    RickNeedzToGetShreaded Posts: 293 Member
    They must comfort eat the wrong foods I guess? and yes a lot of them are overweight..
  • RN514
    RN514 Posts: 1,107 Member
    Oh boy...this will be a long one.

    I'm an overweight nurse. I was an obese nurse. I gained 68lbs during nursing school and my first year and 4 months working as a RN.

    Why? Because I had no time to exercise during school because I was always studying? Because going back and forth between day shift and night shift 4x a week made me have insane eating habits? Because watching patients who I grow close to die sucks? Because having so much pressure on me because every decision I make is life or death causes me to eat an entire family size bag of sour cream and onion chips?

    No!! I CHOSE not to MAKE time to exercise during nursing school. I CHOSE not to have better eating habits when I had a job with bad hours. I CHOSE to eat an entire bag of chips at a time to handle the emotional stress and pressure.

    ***I was obese because I made myself that way, and I didn't love myself enough to change that.*** When I began making MYSELF a priority, exercising & only eating what my body needs all of a sudden I wasn't obese anymore.

    ...This is no different than anyone else who is overweight or obese.

    I do agree with the phrase "practice what you preach" though. I was beginning to feel silly telling my pts to eat better and exercise when I myself wasn't. My pts are a huge motivatior for me.

    I went through total heck during nursing school and go through even more total heck as an actual RN. Why do I do it? Because I love people and I have faith in humanity...I believe that bringing comfort to people to people when they have no one else to comfort them is a blessing.

    Unless the OP has called a code before on someone who was watching football & cheering on LSU just seconds before crashing or held the hand of someone who was trying to punch her at the same time because he was coming off of a bad meth binge, I don't expect her to understand. There are so many humbling aspects of nursing.

    I love reading people's opinions on nurses. Remember, we choose what size needles to stick you with and what size catheters to insert.
  • 1longroad
    1longroad Posts: 642 Member
    I don't see how you can work in the medical field, and be obese/overweight. That has always bugged me. How are you going to tell others they need to eat less junk, when you're eating horrible things yourself? And none of that ''I work long hours'' crap. There's something called calorie control.

    I'm a nurse. Not a dietician. I've never once told a patient to lose weight. My job is to love and support people unconditionally in their weakest moments. My job is to save lives whatever condition they're in without prejudice or judgment. Not even considering that I'm a nurse, if I was employing a nurse it would be more important to me that they were ****-hot in knowledge and skills, not that they can bench press 200kgs and had a bmi of 25. I'll tell you something though - I might be overweight but I know a few of my 150lb friends couldn't shift a 500lb patient like I can.


    Agreeing with this 100 % also... looks like we nurses have to stand together on this thread! If they haven't walked in our shoes they apparently have no clue!

    Exactly. There's a certain poster in here who 'doesn't want a fat nurse'. That's cool because when he drops on the floor and has a cardiac arrest at the gym I will decide I don't like skinny patients and I will walk away ...

    As nurses, we go a step beyond that and care for every person, whether they are fat, thin, rich, poor, ugly, gorgeous, polite, rude, mean or nice and we do it with caring and competence. Even when it's not deserved!
  • IanBee93
    IanBee93 Posts: 237 Member
    For people who are threatening to use bigger needles on patients, they don't like, you should be fired, on the spot. I wish we knew what hospital you worked in, so we can report you.
  • Alex
    Alex Posts: 10,137 MFP Staff
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