The medical discourse and prejudice done by doctors has affected harshly the obese patients. The weight bias and their stigma has been affecting their health quality by how they get treated by their doctors and people around them. This is impacting the way of living of obese people and influencing the effects of depression, sadness, anger, judgement, etc. Affecting the care, they deliver from their doctors. This is causing severe distrust and poor piety towards everyone especially obese people are now, not just hating doctors, but the people surrounding them as well. The experienced that patients are living is causing them to feel stressed and evading of attention. According to Phelan he stated “Many healthcare providers hold strong
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Decreasing the effects on the renowned care of obesity stigma will make a tremendous difference on obesity people refining their way of living.
Criticizing overweight people puts them in the spot where they do not want to go out any more to the public and avoid any kind of contact with everyone just because they feel ashamed of their body. It drives the obese people to become very sensitive with everyone and not comfortable while eating anything. As they feel more ashamed and guilty of themselves they tend to get fatter, feel loner, and sadder. There has been held some public campaigns for the obese people to come to the public and to participate where they can open themselves so they do not feel ashamed of themselves anymore. These campaigns include programs with proper treatment and weight loss, but still some obese patients still refuse the opportunity. According to doctor Jackson he stated “Our study clearly shows that weight discrimination is part of obesity problem and not the solution”. (Macrae, “Telling someone they’re fat”) The implications for this problem is for the obese people to open themselves to this public campaigns which held programs with health and comfort for them not to feel guilty and ashamed of themselves. As
The article “Fat and Happy: In Defense of Fat Acceptance” is written by Mary Ray Worley, a member of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. She writes of her firsthand experience as a “fat person” in society. Throughout the article, Worley explains what it is like to be obese and describes the way society treats those who have a weight problem. She attacks the idea of dieting, criticizes medical professionals for displaying an obscured view of health risks, and defends the idea of exercising to feel good rather than exercising to lose weight. Unfortunately, her article seems to reflect only own opinions and emotions rather than actual facts and statistics.
“Fat Acceptance”: An Argument Lacking Validity Cynara Geisslers’ essay “Fat Acceptance: A Basic Primer,” was published in Geez Magazine in 2010. The focus of the essay is to refute the pressure of society to be thin and promote self-acceptance regardless of size. While this essay touches on many agreeable points, it tends to blow many ideas out of context in an attempt to create a stronger argument. The article takes on a one-sided argument without any appropriate acknowledgement of the opposition, overlooks the risks of ignoring personal health, and has a strong feminist ideology associated towards the essay which tends to make the validity of her argument questionable.
This country places great value on achieving the perfect body. Americans strive to achieve thinness, but is that really necessary? In his article written in 1986 entitled “Fat and Happy?,” Hillel Schwartz claims that people who are obese are considered failures in life by fellow Americans. More specifically, he contends that those individuals with a less than perfect physique suffer not only disrespect, but they are also marginalized as a group. Just putting people on a diet to solve a serious weight problem is simply not enough, as they are more than likely to fail. Schwartz wants to convey to his audience that people who are in shape are the ones who make obese people feel horrible about themselves. Schwartz was compelled to write this essay,
Prejudice is a poison because it is insidious. Individuals hold beliefs or biases, often simply because that belief was handed down to them, not because of any concrete rationale. Conversations serve to prune beliefs, by placing them under the scrutiny of cross examination; something about presenting ideas to another person spawns more careful thought than presenting the same ideas internally. In this instance the prejudice accosted is that against the obese. Mistreatment of the obese is typically rooted in a very shallow, appearance based prejudice, which when confronted, is not logically sustainable.
Interest in the social aspects of obesity is nothing new. Jeffrey Sobal has written extensively about the social and psychological consequences of obesity , including the stigmatisation and discrimination of obese and even overweight individuals (Sobal 2004).
In the American culture, obesity is seen as a bodily abnormality and deviance that should be corrected. Obesity has indeed become one of the most stigmatizing bodily characteristics in our culture (Brink, 1994). In the Western culture, thinness does not just mean the size of the body, but it is associated with such qualities as being healthy, attractive and in control. In contrast, a fat body is viewed as a sign of poor health, inefficiency and lack of personal will (e.g. Kissling, 1991; Ogden, 1992; Cooper, 1998). Resent research has shown that the social stigma associated with obesity can have serious consequences for an obese individual via discrimination in central fields of life such as education, health care, and employment. In relation to gender, the stigma associated with been obese is not the same for men and women. Research has clearly shown that obesity is more stigmatizing for women and obese women are discriminated against more than men because of their weight (Puhl & Brownell, 2001).
Recently, obesity problem has been increased in many developed countries around the world tormenting a large number of people more than ever before. Not only is obesity a negative factor when one’s health issue is considered, but also there are sociological factors that can negatively influence the lives of obese people. In order to understand about sociological perspectives toward obesity, it is useful to associate with the Goffman’s writings and his theories such as stigmatization and symbolic interactionism. These theories allow us to thoroughly analyze the sociological issue that obese individuals face. Moreover, it is important to consider possible solutions to cure stigmatized individuals and to prevent a stigma attached to obesity.
...erstanding the diversity of individuals. With considering obesity as a disability, it may be inappropriate in circumstances where some are still able to function at an acceptable level but it may be appropriate in cases where they are unable to cope. This is establishing the transition point where obesity does in fact cause significant disability. The aim of the healthcare team should be to prevent the development of these impairments caused by the obesity by trying to avoid further deterioration in the patient’s health. This will mean trying to ensure that individuals prone to excessive weight gain are educated and supported in ordered to avoid them becoming obese. This can be done through motivational interviewing and appropriate education along with the right resources available and will result is some individuals not progressing to the stage of becoming disable.
About 2.8 billion adults every year die of obesity (Diet). Rachel Epstein wrote the book “Eating Habits and Disorders” which talks about obesity being a disease. Obesity is a condition with extra body fat which often starts to form in childhood (Epstein 25). While obesity for some adults can be life-threatening (Epstein 25). It can also form psychosocial problems (Epstein 25). Being obese causes a risk in diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, kidney trouble and more (Epstein 25). Being obese during pregnancy can cause many problems for the mom, and for the baby (Epstein 25). Any of these things could cause many problems either in the future, or in the present (Epstein 25). The worse the eating habits, the harder it is to cure (Epstein 25). The government needs to do more about obesity because obesity rates are rising, many kids are being victims of obesity and they don’t even know it, also Medical Care is taking a big part with the growing obesity rates.
Being fat is one of the most stigmatizing attributes in America. One cannot live through a single day without encountering numerous forms of fat prejudice in magazines, on television, in the streets, and even in homes. Erving Goffman’s Stigma delineates three types of stigma: abominations of the body, blemishes of individual character, and tribal stigma of race, nation and religion (4). According to Goffman’s definition, being fat is an abomination of the body. Being fat is a highly visible stigma, unlike the stigma of being queer which does not have an outward appearance. According to research in Women’s Conflicts About Eating and Sexuality, "Fat oppression, the fear and hatred of fat people, remains one of the few ‘acceptable’ prejudices still held by otherwise progressive persons" (Meadow 132). In fact, people are obsessed with noticing fat, not getting fat, and pointing out to people that they are fat without hesitation. Unlike other stigmas, fat people are blamed for their condition. Society believes that if fat people really wanted to they could just lose weight and be permanently thin. Fat is not the problem, rather fat oppression endorsed and reinforced by society is the problem.
My wife & I have been together for 12 years and we were making plans for marriage when I met with a cycling accident in December 2013. I passed out from the accident and was admitted to hospital. Brain scans picked up a mass in my brain. The MRI confirmed the tumour and I was diagnosed with Trigeminal Schwannoma. As I was not experiencing any symptom, I could not accept my condition, I was in denial. Over the next nine months, I sought medical advice from various doctors; the consensus was to have surgery. It took me some time for me to accept that I had to take this step, through a combination of support from my fiancé and my parents, my new found faith in God, friends in church, and finding out more from others who had been through the journey such as Melissa Lim, founder of BTSS.
Through the institutions in society obesity has been stigmatized. The media, medical field and business world to name a few have looked down on obesity. The media for example uses sex appeal a lot of the time to advertise or draw in ratings and therefore individuals exposed to the media see that everyone in the world should hold these ideal body types. Also in the business domain obese people are viewed either as lazy, lacking in self-control or both, causing them to be less desirable candidates for employment. From this one can then see that any individual who happens to have more body weight than the norm is deviant to the values of society. Deviance being Merton’s concept of “ modes of action that do not conform to the dominant norms or values in a social group or society.” (Appelrouth, Edles, 2012: 814) Since in structural functionalism everything plays a role in society Merton would argue that this deviance of body weight actually is useful. For example, the growing concerns of obesity can help the medical field unite in its focus on researching what is a true healthy body. As scientist and medical professionals investigate the negative causes of obesity on the human body and mind, they can in turn learn new concepts of the human anatomy allowing improved developments in our health system. This outcome of focus on obesity can
Those who are overweight and obese not only impact themselves but they also impact their peers and fellow citizens. The responsibility of American’s to help those who are suffering from obesity is absent. This is understandable, considering we are not responsible for the actions of others. However, change arrives when other’s no longer stand idly by watching suffering. Those who suffer from addictions or psychiatric abnormalities experience greater success in getting back on...