Tag: Body image

In consideration of a rat’s backside

On By doctorlunnersIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Today has been tough. Youngest child is being potty trained, and, after some early success, this afternoon there were two unapologetic toilet stops on my kitchen floor. It got to post kiddie bedtime, and I found myself reaching for my phone wanting that quick endorphin hit from some social media post. Then flicked selfie photo mode on to check out if there was a shred of attractiveness left in my exhausted working mum of two bod. Photo taken, I then consider the myriad of options to enhance and edit said photo…

And then I stopped. What am I doing?

I’m a well-educated woman with a fantastic job and a beautiful family. How do I think my self-worth could possibly come down to an edited selfie?

It’s totally ridiculous when you think about it. But I can guarantee you most of us have had times where everything has rested upon how good we think we look, often as a judgement or comparison to someone else. It makes me cringe inside thinking about it. And mad. It makes me mad that society at large beats us with an image-conscious stick. It’s outrageous we think at edited selfie makes or breaks us, but that is exactly what we are told every day by media coming at us from all angles. And what do so many compliments come down to? What do all of us love to hear?

‘You’re looking lovely today.’

‘Your daughter is so beautiful.’

‘You have the most gorgeous eyes.’

‘You’re looking amazing for *insert age milestone/life trauma/child-related ageing event*’

I received a patient complaint several years ago. Whilst the complaint itself was a bit odd (the guy was annoyed I had explained to him the reasons behind investigations requested, when he had asked me to explain said investigations), I was most cheesed off that he had described me as the doctor who looked late thirties. I think I was 28 at the time. How to twist the knife eh.

The problem is it doesn’t stop with an edited selfie. Caring about how you look in a photo is one thing; editing it is you telling yourself you do not look good enough just the way you are. And it’s all part of the mentality that we must present ourselves in a certain way to have worth, to be accepted.

It wouldn’t bother me so much I don’t think if I didn’t have kids. My eldest is a girl – refuses to wear a dress of skirt, wants shortest hair, the only girl in her football class. My youngest is a boy – wears all the dresses eldest refused to, has pink flowery wellies, angling for my nail varnish. And I want them to be exactly who they are, whoever they want to be, do whatever they want. Apart from urinate on the kitchen floor, they need to not do that.

I’ve thought about this a lot. I think the only way to be truly happy is to truly not give a rat’s arse about your selfie. Or about what some random may or may not think of that selfie. It makes us all feel good to get dolled up, to know someone else finds us attractive, but there’s a point where it becomes unhealthy and wholly distracting from what is important in life and to our own health. We should all feel that we have the freedom to be happy without the shackles of self or others judgement on how small/big (delete as appropriate for what’s on trend for the decade) our bum is.

The photo on this log is my selfie from this evening. Unedited. Full of imperfection. And I can’t say I’m fully there, but I’m much closer to not giving a rat’s arse than I used to be.

Fat shaming – right or wrong?

On By doctorlunnersIn Body image, GP, Healthcare, NHS, ObesityLeave a comment

When I was in my late teens we jetted off for a sunny trip to wonderful California. Much fun had all round spotting a Grand Canyon and fearing for my life whilst my mother navigated the winding roads of Yosemite National Park. It’s strange what memories stay with you. A few of my most vivid memories from that trip are the sheer number of morbidly obese people and the enormous food portions. I remember sitting in a MacDonalds and have a McFlurry treat – they were twice the size of the ones back in the UK. I ordered a side of potato, and I was dished up a whole jacket potato. As a SIDE dish. Crazy.

Somewhere around then I developed a bit more of an interest in Public Health, and I’m now a strong advocate for prevention rather than cure in GP land. Many of you will know that the UK is doing a fantastic job of playing catch up to the USA with its obesity numbers. Is fat shaming helpful in tackling the problem?

‘Fat Shaming’

The term ‘fat shaming’ has been banded around quite a lot in recent years. My main issue with it is that people who feel discriminated against because of their weight don’t seem to be motivated to drop a few pounds. Infact, there’s a bit of evidence to say it makes us put on weight, do less exercise, or binge on the crisp cupboard.

So it turns out that humiliating someone into doing something may not be great. I don’t think this should come as a huge surprise. But there is a big difference between not humiliating someone and not addressing the problem period.

Health badness

Being overweight or obese has well known health consequences. Stuff like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, heart disease, cancer…so much badness, but it feels like just as more evidence gets trotted out about how awful it is, more people are slipping into the high BMIs (body mass index, one of the common ways we measure how your weight is doing.  It’s not infallible but now is not the time to debate its merits. You can check out what your BMI is here).

Do we think these things aren’t going to happen to us? Do we think that medicine can just solve it if they do? Do we think that everyone is a little bit podgy and they’re still standing so it’s ok?

‘Everyone is a bit podgy’

A patient once said to me that she’d never ‘be skinny’ like me. Firstly, thanks, you can come again for calling me skinny. But seriously, at the time I was far from skinny – according to my BMI, I was overweight. I feel like our relationship with weight is so unhealthy now that we’ve seen a shift in what we perceive as normal weight. For some people, what used to be overweight is now largely perceived as normal, and it’s only when you’re quite obviously obese that we start thinking that you may want to shed a few pounds to avoid the old ticker snuffing it.  The risks start going up when you become overweight. That’s BMI over 25.

‘Medicine cannot solve everything’

I don’t think people really consider how bad the health consequences are. Let’s take type 2 diabetes. Getting diabetes isn’t just about the need to take a bit of medication a day, or possibly needing to inject insulin. It’s about the risk of having a heart attack, a stroke, or losing your legs, losing your eye sight, losing the feeling in your fingers. Yes, sure, medicine is great, but they cannot take away the risks associated with having type 2 diabetes. The truth is if you are obese, you risk dying early or suffering from some problem that will mean you won’t be able to run after your grandkids as well or fully enjoy that cracking retirement you had planned. Also just to tip money into the mix, you cost the NHS thousands of pounds if you run into all these diabetes complications. Not wanting to spark a debate about NHS resources and entitlement, just thought it’s worth a mention.

Body image

I just had to go have a breather after bashing out the reality of having type 2 diabetes. Feels harsh saying it how it is. On the subject of harshness, let’s talk about body image and how we agonise daily over how ugly we are.

None of us are immune to it. Let me go back to my reaction to the patient who called me skinny. My automatic reaction was how bloody wonderful that someone thinks I’m thin. We grow up with a constant stream of worth-only-with-attractiveness in our faces. I am very much aware of this now I have a little girl. 9 times out of 10 the first thing someone will say to her is a comment on how she looks. We all do it, me included. From before they can even understand what you’re saying, we are effectively telling our kids be beautiful or be nothing.  And then start the constant media stream. It’s a wonder any of us are sane. Fat shaming plays on our fear of not being beautiful, and therefore not good enough. That’s my other main gripe with it.

Lifestyles

I’m a big believer that most of our lifestyles aren’t super duper for our health in general. Our lives are so busy, we are quick to pick up the easiest thing for lunch, have breakfast on the go, slip into 2 pizza nights a week. I think it would be much better for us to slow up. Accept that you cannot be everywhere, go to every social function, reply to every text within the hour. How great would it be to give yourself time to prioritise and enjoy sourcing some of your food from local places and having time to cook nutritious food? Because that’s what used to happen right? People had to take time over making bread from scratch because they had no option. Now even if we want to make said bread, we feel like we couldn’t possibly because our lives are so busy. And there’s Hovis.

Your weight is a function of how much food you demolish and how much you burn through exercise. My other lifestyle bugbear is how we think about exercise. I was watching a Peppa Pig episode (as is my TV viewing these days) when mummy sheep said to Suzie sheep she’s working today running and jumping at the gym, to which Suzie replied ‘that’s playing, not working mummy.’

It’s sad that a lot of us feel like exercise is another chore we need to do, and that doing it normally involves a trudge to the gym. Getting our weekly 150 minutes moderate exercise (as are the guidelines for adults) can involve so much more than the gym. I mean, fabulous if you love the gym, nothing wrong with that, but there are so many more ways to get your exercise in. In my opinion, walking is fantastic. It also gets you outside and is great for your mental health. There are a load of sports you can get involved in to tick off your exercise goals – cycling, tennis, and, as the NHS website advises, rollerblading. Bit random, not sure how many patients will have dusted their roller boots off and got back on it after seeing that advice, but you never know. There are also lots of things that we can do in our daily lives to get in our exercise – doing the housework, lawn mowing, running around with the kids.

Disclaimer: I’m a member of a gym, I love it, but I also think they tend to create this divide of people-who-can and people-who-can’t. How often do we see obese people in a gym class? I rarely do. How often do we see people who are training for their 5th marathon and standing on their head whilst waiting for the yoga class to start? Regularly. I think gyms could do more to encourage everyone to get moving.

Childhood obesity

I want to say a word on this because having an obviously obese child walking into my clinic is one of the most heart breaking things I see. 1 in 5 of our 10 year olds are obese. Obese. Not overweight, obese.

I find it so sad because we are setting those kids up for a lifetime of health consequences. And then the stats are that their kids are more likely to be obese! 8 in 10 kids who have 2 obese parents will be obese.

We need to do more as parents. I get it, I know it’s hard being bothered to switch off Peppa and get outdoors when you’re so exhausted you wonder why we don’t get to hibernate through winter. But instilling healthy habits in our kids sets them up for life. If we can get them enjoying some form of exercise, whatever it is, they will have that for life and enjoy all the benefits, which include but are not limited to health (talking about things like self esteem – which links back to body image). If we can instill a good, healthy relationship with food, they will be far less likely to hit the walkers crisps every time things are tough in life.

Final thoughts

I say all of this like I’m currently sitting pretty with a normal BMI. I’m not, so huge solidarity if you’re in the same position. After having my second kid I had a stark realisation that I was slipping towards obesity. So I decided to do something about it.

Fat shaming isn’t helpful. But it also isn’t helpful for us to avoid telling people they are overweight. And whether you think being big is beautiful or not, it’s not healthy.

What I think we need is a healthy relationship with our body. And that relationship forms and grows from a young age with the guidance and support of our parents. If how we approach food and exercise is healthy, then I believe a normal body weight would follow.