Standards Of Medical Weight
Weight and height measurements are routinely done at health clinics; and you are often assigned a certain label (“underweight, healthy weight, overweight, or obese”) based on these measurements. Your clinician may even encourage you to lose weight, to see a dietitian, or to consider drugs or surgery, without even asking about your eating and exercise habits and considering your level of fitness. The clinician, of course, has good intentions. After all, clinicians are taught in their medical training about all the perils of “obesity.” And, they are reminded again and again (often by pharmaceutical company-sponsored meetings and events) that obesity is a “disease” that can (and should) be aggressively treated with drugs.
Weight measurements may reflect bad eating habits, a sedentary lifestyle and poor health and fitness, but not necessarily. In fact, there are many “overweight” men and women who eat a balanced diet, exercise regularly, and enjoy excellent health; they have great blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels.
If you have experienced this type of weight prejudice by the medical community, it’s understandable that your body image and self-esteem would suffer. After all, you are being told by one of the most powerful and respected members of society that you are “diseased.” The guilt, shame, and self-loathing associated with such a label does nothing to support healthy eating, physical activity, and good health. In many cases, it does just the opposite.
Perfectionism, compulsiveness, competitiveness, and high achievement expectations are personality traits commonly associated with college students. These personality traits helped you get into a prestigious university like UCLA. But these personality traits may also carry over to other aspects of life (like wanting to be the perfect weight, eat the perfect diet, have the perfect work-out program). Having these personality traits doesn’t cause you to develop an eating disorder, but they do put you at greater risk of developing one if other environmental factors are also present.
Post a Comment