Unless of course you are fat. Then you don’t deserve medical care according to Dr Hamish Meldrum, head of the British Medical Association…
Obese people are often simply greedy and should not always be treated with pills, the head of the British Medical Association has said.
Related posts:
- Health Care is a Right, unless . . .
- Government-run health care
- The New England Journal of Medicine focuses on primary care
- Vaccines "un-Islamic"?
- Do people need comprehensive health insurance?
- The mindset of a suicide jumper
- Inevitable: NHS forced to ration care
KevinMD.com on Facebook
{ 10 comments }
hate to be that guy, but…
“Unless of course your fat” should be “Unless of course you’re fat”
Otherwise love the blog.
He seems to be forgeting that the brain is a biological organ, therefore, it is intellectuall irrational to dispute the validity of the medical profession medicalizing any behavior with health consequences.
Behavior, all behavior, including his puritanical judgementalism, is a result of biological processes.
That does not mean however, that it is helpful to medicalize it, or that it should be medicalized in all contexts. Some behaviors for example, might be usefully thought of medically in the psychiatrists office, while out of his office to do so is to do harm as it reinforces ones sense of helplessness and demoralization in their struggles to reduce it.
Obesity is not, I think, usefully treated judgementally or as a moral flaw. Ethics usually deal with interpersonal behavior, and there is not evidence that fat people are any greedier in a general context than thin people. The most generous people I know are fat. The stingiest are thin. I do not, therefore think greed is an appropriate label.
No one wants to be fat. It is the one behavioral compusion, except compusive face tatooing, which is immediately obvious to everone you meet. The compulsive masturbator, compulsive gambler, compulsive shopper, even the compusive judgmental prude, can reveal or hide their flaws whenever they choose.
The fact that obesity is so soundly condemned and yet is increasing even as we build a new civic religion around health and yet rarely successfully defeated in a sustained fashion is a testament to the fact that there are forces at work much more powerful than personal values or preferences.
Anyone who can’t deal with fat people without being judgemental really ought not be practicing medicine these days, or perhaps should specialize in some condition that fat people never get.
Ugh. Spare us with this non-judgmental pabulum. Correct me if I am wrong but your post distills into: The fat ones can’t help it that they are fat. Those twinkies and ho-hos magically jumped into the craw of the fat ones after the sugary sodas and candy bars tied them down.
yes, those twinkies and Ho Hos just came into thier mouths out of no where.
Just exactly like all the beer and whiskey just happens to find itself ruining a liver, through no fault of the alcoholic, of course… or all those fried fatty foods causing heart disease. And lets not forget all the diabetics eating their way into comas and amputations.
Now, unless you are a perfect person, and you, nor any loved one’s, have ever had any medical condition that COULD have been brought about by their own negative behavior, then you really should not be throwing stones.
Throwing stones at purported adults that volitionally engage in irresponsible behavior? Absolutely. If you are a child that can’t handle the responsibility for feeding yourself without burdening others, then you need to have said responsibility removed from you.
Anon 8:00PM,
Whatever you say, God!
Get used to it mortal. Get even more used to it if you drive my insurance premiums up by including yourself in my risk pool or if because of your engorged paniculus, some soft in the head politician passes a “fat” tax. A tax that I get stuck having to pay because you can’t control your eating habits.
Can I also exclude people who engage in unnecessary and risky behavior like driving cars or bicycling in cities? What about those idiots who make me pay for their reconstructive surgery because they insist on playing parkinglot basketball?
Sure. Why not. Why be forced to be in a risk pool with weekend warriors, human crash test dummies and the obese?
I’m not a doctor, but…
It seems to me the English guy is saying obesity should be treated with diet and exercise, not pills. Maybe they’re just not as pill-happy as we are.
I’ll agree he had a very crass way of putting it.
Comments on this entry are closed.