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I didnt see a doctor for eight years.
Getty / Edmund Lowe Photography, TS Photography; Design / Morgan Johnson
I had good insurance and plenty of doctors nearby.
I had all the access I needed.
There were so many little moments that led me there.
In my early twenties, I visited urgent care for an ear infection.
The doctor quickly wrote prescriptions for antibiotics and ear drops.
When I asked him what I needed to do for aftercare, he said plainly, lose some weight.
Later, I found another doctor for an annual checkup.
At the appointment, he physically recoiled at the sight of me.
My body was never touched, never examined.
At another appointment, a nurse took myblood pressurefour times.
When I asked her if I was okay, she told me my blood pressure must be wrong.
“Obese patients dont usually have low blood pressure,” she said.
Even my health was impossible to believe.
I expected to discuss my weight with my doctor in certain situations, but I faced a monologue instead.
Cut out junk food.
Drink more water."
As if I had never considered weight loss.
As if I hadnt spent a lifetime trying to escape my own skin.
Every office visit left me feeling more and more invisible.
In the absence of medical attention, I followed the advice doctors had given me: lose weight.
My eating was meticulous and restricted, falling into the casualorthorexiaof “clean eating” and rigorous food journaling.
I felt wild, like Id lost control of my brain and body alike.
It took months for me to recognize the soft shadows of disordered eating in my behavior.
After all, if youre fat, weight is the only marker of health that seems to matter.
I had learned that lesson too well.
Like an old computer, my brain overheated, working itself to overload, looking for explanations.
I felt ashamed for so deeply neglecting my health.
Was it all in my head?
The stories I found offered a crushing kind of validation.
An experience that filled her with shame.
Alarmingly, the registered nurses had significantly higher levels of fat phobia and negative attitudes than their student counterparts.
There is research that suggests primary care providers buildless emotional rapportwith fat patients.
It also notes that Despite decades of science documenting weight stigma, its public health implications are widely ignored.
Again, its not in our heads.
As a result, perhaps unsurprisingly, many fat patients delay or avoid seeking medical carejust like I did.
Today, more than one third of American adults are classified as obese,according to the CDC.
These werent cartoon villains, executing some master plan.
They didnt decide to hate fat people, or to harm us.
They were just people.
They were people who had developed their skills for years, been trained in a rigorous diagnostic approach.
I still struggle to say that the staggering ubiquity of weight stigma is a matter of life and death.
But the personal stories are endless, and the research is damning.
It feels melodramatic somehow to say that weight stigma kills, until I realize that it can.
I remember Rebeccas story: cancer undiagnosed for years.
I think back to that research showing that weight stigma deters patients from seeking care.
I realize that I could be one tumor or one missed diagnosis away from becoming another cautionary tale.
Its hard for me to fathom, too.
Sometimes, they dont even see us.
The staggering evidence of anti-fat bias is disheartening, but it offers action for each of us.
That couldnt have happened.
Youre probably being too sensitive.
Maybe you imagined it.
A growing body of research demonstrates that fat people arent just imagining medical bias.
Weight stigma is real, and so is the harm it causes.
That leads many of us to eating disorders and other coping behaviors that put our health at risk.
But the truth is, all kinds of people become fat for all kinds of reasons.
Whether for yourself or for your fat loved ones, find little ways to advocate.
Ask your doctor if she is trained inhealth at every size approachesto providing care.
Share this information with friends and family who work as healthcare providers.
Find ways to raise awareness.
Years later, I have returned to medical care.
Still, bias follows me like a storm cloud.
Our lives truly do depend on it.
Your Fat Friendwrites anonymously about the social realities of life as a very fat person.
Her work has been translated into 19 languages and covered around the world.
Most recently, Your Fat Friend was a contributor to Roxane GaysUnruly Bodies compilation.
it’s possible for you to follow here on Twitterhere.
