Hacker News Reader

Comment by veggieroll | Hacker News Reader

Yes! Can confirm: I went to the doctor when I was very overweight (on the verge of obese BMI-wise) and he pulled this line. He was a nice guy. But, I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Why go to a doctor that won't even acknowledge one of the most important things you can do for your health?

View on HN

What line? Your doctor told you that you were overweight but that he wouldn't recommend you do anything about it?

I went to my doctor as someone overweight bordering on obese and asked for help. I told him my plan for losing weight. But, he told me I didn't need to lose weight, because being overweight isn't bad for your health. Eventually I lost 70 lbs and found a new doctor.

Wow, that completely flies in the face of the experience I and everyone I know has with doctors all the time. IME it's much more likely that your weight will be blamed for any and all conditions that develop because losing weight is strongly correlated with improvements across the board in overweight and obese people and (and I think this is the key to why it's the first line of defense for so many disparate things) insurance companies all but mandate that "lifestyle changes" be tried as treatment before they will cover any other treatment option.

Riddle me this: were you trying to lose weight as a course of treatment for some other thing that was happening or were you trying to lose weight for its own sake? I'm wondering if the doctor actually thinks that being overweight is fine or if they were just saying you don't have any particular condition that being overweight would treat or relieve. I don't mean to call you out in particular, it's just that your experience is directly opposite to anything I've experienced or been told about as someone who was overweight and went to doctors about it and as someone whose entirely family has always been in healthcare in some way or another (a couple doctors, several nurses, I'm in med tech alongside a couple cousins and my dad runs a power plant but even he runs a power plant owned by a hospital system).

Yes, I understand because I also couldn't believe how any doctor could think that.

But no, I had no active medical conditions and this was the first time I saw this doctor. So, he didn't really know my medical history anyways.

The weight loss was really the entire reason I went in. But over my medical history I've had a lot of experiences like this where doctors really aren't very helpful. Or at least, they don't have enough time to actually think beyond the 10 most common things that happen to people.

I'm trying something that's new to me here: I'm gonna try to come up for an explanation for this that doesn't assume anyone is an idiot or an asshole but still makes the facts make sense. The only thing I can come up with from that framework is maybe were you looking for drugs to help you lose weight? Maybe GLP-1s or stimulants. I can see a world where a doctor might say something like "These drugs have side effects and I hesitate to prescribe them to you unless the weight loss you're seeking will alleviate some other disease." I can't see a world in which a doctor would say "Don't bother with losing weight via exercise and healthy diet because it doesn't make a difference to your overall health outcomes". Also you don't happen to remember your BMI at the time, do you? It's not a great stat overall but it can be a starting point for determining what improvements to other health outcomes one might expect with weight loss.

I definitely appreciate the perspective of benefit of the doubt and seeking understanding. But I really can't figure out what he was getting at.

This was in 2018, before GLP-1's, and I wasn't looking for medication.

ew, then idk and I'm sorry that the competence of GPs seems to fall on a Bell curve like everything else. also fwiw I never thought you were an idiot or an asshole, I was referring to the doctor (who I'm now confident has to be one or the other).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com