anna genoese

Content notes for this entry: discussion of an eating disorder (restrictive), doctors, weight, fatness, confronting oppression.

Assumption: You are body positive and have read most of the materials linked here. Do not comment on this post to tell me that fat people are disgusting and going to die of heart disease or whatever. Keep your bullshit to yourself.

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Let me tell you about a trick I know.

It is only in the last couple of years that I've had health insurance and started going to doctors and taking stuff pretty seriously. (I basically hit my wall of feeling crappy, to be honest.)

I read a lot of material about going to the doctor as a fat person, with a lot of advice. The advice always boils down to giving the reader two choices if the doctor is a jerk about fat people:

1. Leave
2. Confront & educate

I've done the first one more than once. I'm also the caretaker of a person who sees a lot of doctors, and I have walked that person out on more than one occasion as well.

I think #2 is pretty important -- doctors need to be educated about their bullshit if indeed they have some bullshit happening. I mean, I once went to a doctor who told me to "keep it up" when I told her I was only eating 230 calories every day. Then she added thoughtfully, "Try to eat less fat." That's bullshit.

But sometimes "confront and educate" isn't something you can do, for whatever reason -- and don't even get me started on the idea that someone should educate their oppressor!

With that particular doctor is actually where my advice comes from, because I left her office -- in complete fucking crisis, having left work early the day before because I was hallucinating from not eating enough calories to keep my body going -- and cried in my car, then got a smoothie, then asked for help from people I trusted. In this case, I ended up going to Michelle Allison, the "Fat Nutritionist" and signing up for sessions with her.

That's where I learned this trick.

Tell whichever doctor giving you a hard time, "Oh, I'm dealing with this, thanks, my nutritionist and I are working on it."

Seriously.

I have never had a doctor ask for my nutritionist's name or contact info. I've never had a doctor accuse me of lying about having a nutritionist (although I have totally had them accuse me of lying about exercise and calorie counts!). I've never had a doctor continue the conversation about size after that statement.

Without fail, the doctor always says, "Oh, in that case..." and goes on to give me what I am sure is pretty much the same treatment they'd give a thin person.

It's been about 18 months since my last session with Michelle, and I still tell doctors (like, you know, my eye doctor, who has no business commenting on my size in the first place) that I appreciate their concern, but my nutritionist and I are handling it.

It is okay to not always be the perfect fat person with the perfect educational response. It's okay to deflect instead of confront. It's okay to let the doctor keep thinking their bullshit thoughts. Especially when you have a problem that needs treatment and the doctor is focusing on your size instead of your problem.