Obese patients ‘being weight-shamed by doctors and nurses’
Doctors and nurses often “weight-shame” people who are overweight or obese, leaving them feeling anxious, depressed and wrongly blaming themselves for their condition, research has found.
Such behaviour, although usually the result of “unconscious weight bias”, leads to people not attending medical appointments, feeling humiliated and being more likely to put on weight.
Dr Anastasia Kalea and colleagues at University College London analysed 25 previous studies about “weight stigma”, undertaken in different countries, involving 3,554 health professionals. They found “extensive evidence [of] strong weight bias” among a wide range of health staff, including doctors, nurses, dieticians, psychologists and even obesity specialists.
Their analysis found that a number of health professionals “believe their patients are lazy, lack self-control, overindulge, are hostile, dishonest, have poor hygiene and do not follow guidance”, said Kalea, an associate professor in UCL’s division of medicine.
She added: “Sadly, healthcare, including general practice, is one of the most common settings for weight stigmatisation and we know this acts as a barrier to the services and treatments that can help people manage weight.
“An example is a GP that will unconsciously show that they do not believe that the patient complies with their eat less/exercise more regime they were asked to follow as they are not losing weight."
“The result is that patients are not coming back or they delay their follow-up appointments, they avoid healthcare prevention services or cancel appointments due to concerns of being stigmatised due to their weight.”
Source: The Guardian, 10 August 2022