sleepydumpling:

thisisthinprivilege:

I want to add to the discussion about doctors being infallible, but this is going to be too long for the Ask box, so I apologize in advance for this.

If people want a more clear and accessible example of how wrong doctors can truly be (and especially how hard it is to convince them that they are), I highly recommend they look up the film “Sister Kenny.”  It has nothing to do with fat activism, but is the absolutely true story of a nurse during the height of the polio epidemic who challenged the common practice of doctors at the time to completely immobilize patients during the onset of the infection and the weakening of the muscles.  Sister Kenny was absolutely vilified by doctors for the radical notion that weakening muscles ought to be worked to help keep up strength and mobility.

But even though her practices were eventually adopted and are still used to this day as treatment for polio sufferers, it was a hard fight for Sister Kenny to convince the medical profession that they were wrong.

Because no one likes being told they’re wrong, especially not by someone they believe is less trained/intelligent/educated than them.

Or hell, if you want an even more recent example, consider the fact that, until as recently as the 1980’s it was still “common knowledge” for many people that asthma was a psychological condition relating to nervousness because that’s what doctors had diagnosed it as in the ’50s and ’60s.  And while there’s no movie about it, you can still see the traces of it to this day in M. Night Shyamalan’s “Signs” where Mel Gibson’s character treats his son’s asthma attack by telling him “don’t be afraid,” “breathe like I breathe,” and “believe the air is coming.”  Which, I don’t care what you thought about the water thing or anything else, this was definitely the stupidest part of that movie.

No, science doesn’t change.  It, in fact, is pretty static.  But that doesn’t mean that our understanding of it is.  Our understanding of the universe around us and our own bodies and their relationship to nature is always changing, and that absolutely includes medicine.

Remember when you thought humans only used 10% of their brains because medicine told you so?  Remember when the world thought that red M&M’s caused cancer because medicine told us so?  Or when hypnosis was considered the best treatment for uncovering repressed memories by medical professionals?

Even in this day and age when we think we know just about ~*EVERYTHING*~ there is to know, we don’t.  Even if you don’t accept that studies have been done over the past fifty years proving the danger and ineptitude of the diet industry, the constantly changing face of medicine is just a fact.

Frontal lobotomies.

Electro-shock therapy.

Phrenology.

Bleeding various illnesses “out”.

Cornflakes to “cure” masturbation.

I could go on for hours.  Yeah right, medical knowledge is perfect and infallible and has nothing left to learn.  Pass that cure for cancer will you?

fatdiscrimination:

Obese individuals are highly stigmatized and face multiple forms of prejudice and discrimination because of their weight (1,2). The prevalence of weight discrimination in the United States has increased by 66% over the past decade (3), and is comparable to rates of racial discrimination, especially among women (4). Weight bias translates into inequities in employment settings, health-care facilities, and educational institutions, often due to widespread negative stereotypes that overweight and obese persons are lazy, unmotivated, lacking in self-discipline, less competent, noncompliant, and sloppy (2,5,6,7). These stereotypes are prevalent and are rarely challenged in Western society, leaving overweight and obese persons vulnerable to social injustice, unfair treatment, and impaired quality of life as a result of substantial disadvantages and stigma.

— Rebecca M. Puhl and Chelsea A. Heuer writing in “The Stigma of Obesity: A Review and Update” published in Obesity.