You've heard this rant before
Oct. 26th, 2009 05:59 pmWent to a talk on diabetes at the research institute this afternoon. It was generally interesting, covering some evidence implicating a chronic low-level enterovirus infection in acute Type I diabetes in children. (Acute as in most of the kids die within 6 months of diagnosis.)
However, the lecturer, Professor Morgan, decided to give some general background about diabetes. And Type I diabetes is a bit like Type II diabetes, and Type II diabetes is associated with . Cue stupid photos, presumably taken from one of those awful mockery web forums, of extremely fat women in bikinis, and giant hamburgers. This produced a mixture of laughs and expressions of disgust from the audience. And there was absolutely no point in the photo, it had nothing to do with the talk at all, just a source of cheap laughs.
Even if the prof had been talking about the actual medical connections between excess weight and Type II diabetes, there was no call for that. I can't think of any other medical condition where researchers and doctors routinely make fun of their patients' appearance and symptoms in this kind of professional context. The worst thing about it is not just that it's offensive, but that it's exactly the kind of thing that strengthens fat-hating associations in people's minds. Plenty of people already believe as a matter of faith that it's "medical fact" that being fat is bad bad bad and causes all manner of horrible diseases and wastes healthcare resources. But this sort of thing almost implies that it's medical / scientific fact that the best thing to do about weight related health problems is to sneer at fat people and treat them as disgusting and sub-human.
It's not the biggest problem in the world, but it really really annoys me.
However, the lecturer, Professor Morgan, decided to give some general background about diabetes. And Type I diabetes is a bit like Type II diabetes, and Type II diabetes is associated with . Cue stupid photos, presumably taken from one of those awful mockery web forums, of extremely fat women in bikinis, and giant hamburgers. This produced a mixture of laughs and expressions of disgust from the audience. And there was absolutely no point in the photo, it had nothing to do with the talk at all, just a source of cheap laughs.
Even if the prof had been talking about the actual medical connections between excess weight and Type II diabetes, there was no call for that. I can't think of any other medical condition where researchers and doctors routinely make fun of their patients' appearance and symptoms in this kind of professional context. The worst thing about it is not just that it's offensive, but that it's exactly the kind of thing that strengthens fat-hating associations in people's minds. Plenty of people already believe as a matter of faith that it's "medical fact" that being fat is bad bad bad and causes all manner of horrible diseases and wastes healthcare resources. But this sort of thing almost implies that it's medical / scientific fact that the best thing to do about weight related health problems is to sneer at fat people and treat them as disgusting and sub-human.
It's not the biggest problem in the world, but it really really annoys me.
