TEARS SHED IN THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE: WEIGHT STIGMA IN MEDICINE
Written by Siya Angras
After a conversation (one that I would replay many times over), 10 year-old me sat in the doctor's office sobbing her eyes out. It was at this exact moment that my entire perception of myself was damaged…
At my yearly checkup, I was diagnosed with high cholesterol. This diagnosis, which followed the mentions of my weight, led to a toxic relationship with food that would take me years to resolve. At such a young age I had never even thought twice about the number on the scale, let alone been insecure of it. When you are 10, it is actually exciting to be gaining weight since it signifies your growing body. But what I failed to realize was that my growing body would never be accepted. Once my doctor started talking about what I should do to lose weight, I completely zoned out. Everything was a blur. My mind was taken aback by the new insecurities brewing in it. Suddenly, the tears of fear began to roll down my cheeks. Sadly, these were not the last tears I shed in the doctor's office.
Rather than being comforted, I was told that my “junk food binges”, which I was falsely accused of having, had to be said goodbye to. My doctors instilled in my brain that this was the result of my then chubby figure. I was presented with an array of statistics showing how far off my body was from the average 10 year olds. Those percentiles shook me to my core.
I saw countless dieticians that only recommended food not typically found in my home. My family is Punjabi and food is the source of our love. My grandma's famous dishes bring all family, both immediate and extended, to the dinner table. Food was something I looked forward to.
So when did the little girl who loved food turn into the young girl who despised the very idea of it?
Maybe it was in middle school, when after trying so hard I would keep on gaining weight. I started to equate my health with my weight, and so my vicious cycle of trying to lose weight rather than reclaiming my health began. Instead of learning to have a healthy balance in my life, I was introduced to the realm of extremes.
Growing up, nearly every fad diet has entered and left my home from keto to just straight-up fasting. I was placed with the burden of changing my family history of “fatness”. Expectations were placed on me to be a certain size. The South Asian beauty standard, one that did not include curvy bodies, was the mold I was required to fit.
After countless comments of being called moti or fat by the community around me, I was left struggling and beating myself up about not looking like the perfect brown girl. The truth was that I would never be able to fit the brown beauty standards, since they were not based on brown girls at all. I was not white, so I was left at a crossroad of being unable to not only represent my communities standards but also American standards of beauty.
At 12, I finally found a “method” that worked. I would try to go for as long as possible without eating solid food. But as a growing child I had this unsettled hunger, so I would eat so much all at once and then avoid food again for as long as I could. In 6th grade, my doctor's appointments included praise of my “increase in health” since I had lost an immense amount of weight. I still had high cholesterol, but now the message I would receive was that I should just continue whatever I was doing since it was working. My family started to praise my new figure, and how skinny I had become. The tears shed at the doctor's office dissolved from the satisfaction of the compliments I received regarding my unhealthy body.
It was the spring of 8th grade when I was rushed into urgent care. Earlier that day I was asked for the first time whether or not I had eaten something by my school nurse. See, the thing is: the stereotypical body of someone starving themselves often does not reign true for those with curves. At urgent care, I was given so much medicine to return my body to a healthy state. Being hooked up on an array of drugs and steroids really did it for me. I was finally called out on my harmful tendencies. I was so overwhelmed that someone had finally noticed my pain.
So I finally began my recovery process by starting therapy, confiding in my best friends, and gained an immense amount of support.
But the sense of joy stopped when my weight was brought up once again.
At yet another appointment, I was greeted by a new doctor. She looked at me and said nothing, but the minute she saw the number on the scale, I was presented with the same talk I was given when I was 10.
It was always that damn scale. The numbers mattered so much that I had put my body through hell and back to fight that number on the scale. The experience triggered me and resulted in the relapse of my eating disorder. It is infuriating to think a field that is supposed to keep me healthy birthed one of the unhealthiest tendencies I had.
It took quarantine amidst the pandemic to finally regain control of my body. Being away from societal fatphobia allowed me to finally feel good in my skin. I learned balance. Honestly, it took noticing people close to me dealing with similar issues to jumpstart my restoring of confidence. When my focus shifted to feeling good rather than noticing the numbers on the scale, I began to love myself.
Did I have slip ups? Of course. But once I fell in love with myself, I got better at finding ways to deal with them. I had found the tools I needed to prevent myself from falling back into some of the darkest moments of my life. Recovery drained everything out of my being, but I am so glad I went through it.
After recovery, you would think that the tears would stop. But they didn’t
This summer I was diagnosed with PCOS. Women with PCOS have all dealt with preconceived notions that they are fat, which is what doctors attribute as the reason for the hormone imbalance. A 16 year-old me, after hearing this news, weeped in the office of a gynecologist. This interaction should've broken me. I was told to exercise, my doctor saying, “You cannot be lazy with this condition; the next time I see you, you should've lost at least X pounds.”
This damaging incident occurred at my second and last appointment with this doctor. She barely knew me. Once again, the lecture about losing weight only occurred once my weight was known. The first appointment I was told nothing of the sort even though the doctor had suspected my PCOS. The first appointment was also one where I had asked to not be weighed.
I wish I could go back and protect my younger self from all the misleading societal pressure put on me. I have been able to bring my cholesterol levels to normal and begin to reverse my PCOS without losing weight. I love my body, I feel healthy, and I understand that there is nothing inferior or “defective” about fat bodies.
If all the tears I shed in the doctors could be bottled, it would represent all the infliction of pain upon a young girl, the discovery of herself, and the struggle of maintaining it all.
Siya Angras (she/her),17, is a junior in high school in NJ. She is passionate about writing because she believes it is the most effective way to share one’s thoughts/feelings.