Medical care for obesity is currently in most cases like telling someone with a broken starter that they need to run their car more instead of replacing the starter.
If eating too much compared to energy usage is unhealthy then there’s already something wrong with the patient that’s causing them to eat too much or expend too little energy. Telling them to lose weight might be the only thing within a provider’s abilities to do, but it’s equivalent to telling someone with a broken starter to leave the engine running.
It is abelist and biased to pass judgement on ones patients for having symptoms of physical, mental, social, or environmental ailments. When a symptom is already socially stigmatized a provider has a responsibility to care for the social impacts of that stigmatization as well, at the bare minimum in one’s own dealings with the patient.
Your first two paragraphs i agree with 100%. Your final paragraph i feel is accurate but id want to really mull over that before I really form an opinion. Obv in an ideal world it’s pretty easy to assign blame, but our legal and cultural issues are so fucked that topics like that really have to be analyzed in depth under the lens of how that would actually effect reality.
analyzed in depth under the lens of how that would actually effect reality
You are implying you imagine some moral hazard where their provider minimizes the risk of the conditions the patient has, and as a result the patient stops seeking treatment. What you’re talking about in reality is shame. “Should a patient feel shame talking to their provider”?, and the answer to that is resoundingly “no”. Shame is a powerful demotivator, it’s function is to stop a person from doing something that threatens their relationships with others or the society they depend on. Trying to motivate someone with shame is counter-productive. All shame in a patient care setting can do is demotivate the patient from seeking care.
Nah, the moral hazard is from the doctors side. What can a doctor get away with without risking them losing their job or putting themselves in a dangerous position.
Sorry, “moral hazard” is a term-of-art (something that doesn’t mean what it says on its face but is used in some particular way in some fields or professions). In this case by “moral hazard” I meant the idea that if you reduce the harm of some course of action there’s a chance that people will engage in it more because it’s less harmful now. It usually is applied to risky-yet-beneficial behaviours like injury from sports or from outdoor pursuits. It’s ridiculous in that context (I don’t think we should make things worse just so they don’t get better) and doubly or triply ridiculous when the risky behaviour isn’t beneficial or also isn’t effectively voluntary.
Ah yeah, that wasnt what I was trying to imply. I think honestly the main reason that I didnt agree fully was because you were using a lot of terminology in ways that i wasnt sure i understood, and id like to familiarize myself with more of the topic before i formed a distinct opinion of the less clear aspects of issue. Obviously i want everyone to get the help they need though, and I don’t think we were ever seriously in disagreement about that. I appreciate the clarification btw, im not familiar with that usage.
Medical care for obesity is currently in most cases like telling someone with a broken starter that they need to run their car more instead of replacing the starter.
If eating too much compared to energy usage is unhealthy then there’s already something wrong with the patient that’s causing them to eat too much or expend too little energy. Telling them to lose weight might be the only thing within a provider’s abilities to do, but it’s equivalent to telling someone with a broken starter to leave the engine running.
It is abelist and biased to pass judgement on ones patients for having symptoms of physical, mental, social, or environmental ailments. When a symptom is already socially stigmatized a provider has a responsibility to care for the social impacts of that stigmatization as well, at the bare minimum in one’s own dealings with the patient.
Your first two paragraphs i agree with 100%. Your final paragraph i feel is accurate but id want to really mull over that before I really form an opinion. Obv in an ideal world it’s pretty easy to assign blame, but our legal and cultural issues are so fucked that topics like that really have to be analyzed in depth under the lens of how that would actually effect reality.
You are implying you imagine some moral hazard where their provider minimizes the risk of the conditions the patient has, and as a result the patient stops seeking treatment. What you’re talking about in reality is shame. “Should a patient feel shame talking to their provider”?, and the answer to that is resoundingly “no”. Shame is a powerful demotivator, it’s function is to stop a person from doing something that threatens their relationships with others or the society they depend on. Trying to motivate someone with shame is counter-productive. All shame in a patient care setting can do is demotivate the patient from seeking care.
Nah, the moral hazard is from the doctors side. What can a doctor get away with without risking them losing their job or putting themselves in a dangerous position.
Sorry, “moral hazard” is a term-of-art (something that doesn’t mean what it says on its face but is used in some particular way in some fields or professions). In this case by “moral hazard” I meant the idea that if you reduce the harm of some course of action there’s a chance that people will engage in it more because it’s less harmful now. It usually is applied to risky-yet-beneficial behaviours like injury from sports or from outdoor pursuits. It’s ridiculous in that context (I don’t think we should make things worse just so they don’t get better) and doubly or triply ridiculous when the risky behaviour isn’t beneficial or also isn’t effectively voluntary.
Ah yeah, that wasnt what I was trying to imply. I think honestly the main reason that I didnt agree fully was because you were using a lot of terminology in ways that i wasnt sure i understood, and id like to familiarize myself with more of the topic before i formed a distinct opinion of the less clear aspects of issue. Obviously i want everyone to get the help they need though, and I don’t think we were ever seriously in disagreement about that. I appreciate the clarification btw, im not familiar with that usage.