Physicians Have Less Respect for Overweight Patients
This Johns Hopkins study confirms some anecdotes I’ve heard/read.
October 22, 2009-Doctors have less respect for their obese patients than they do for patients of normal weight, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests. The findings raise questions about whether negative physician attitudes about obesity could be affecting the long-term health of their heavier patients.
Mary Margaret Huizinga, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of general internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, says the idea for the research came from her experiences working in a weight loss clinic. Patients would come in and “by the end of the visit would be in tears, saying no other physician talked with me like this before. No one listened to me,” says Huizinga, the study’s leader and director of the Johns Hopkins Digestive Weight Loss Center.
“Many patients felt like because they were overweight, they weren’t receiving the type of care other patients received,” she says.
Not good – no one should be disrespected by their doctors, particularly people who are at risk for future health problems (even if they’re apparently healthy now).
October 28, 2009
The study’s findings seems consistent with social psychological studies that have found discrepancies in how people considered attractive are treated as compared to people who are considered unattractive. That the field of medical care is no exception is not surprising, but it is still particularly sad.
Doctors may also feel that being overweight demonstrates how unreceptive the patients are to health advice, which would naturally have them trim down.