Weight Shaming and PCOS: My Doctor's Harmful Words

Same here, friend ❤️ Fire your doctor (if you can) and otherwise, I literally just told mine, “Look, everyday, there’s no one harder on me than me… I’m doing my best” Most medical professionals all echo their educational experiences, and I now know that I have to take back my power from especially those in the field with big egos and terrible bedside manner. They are human, and a product of a flawed system, but for YEARS I shut down and didn’t advocate for myself. ❤️ no more! ✊

same here! i feel as if they don’t realize how bad their words actually hurt and can truly form EDs because we’re told we should look a certain way and maybe we wouldn’t have as many issues if we did. my first doctor did not, but she left practice. my current one - it was one of the first things she mentioned.

Almost every doc appt I've ever had (Aside from dentist) has mentioned my weight. I tried calorie counting and exercise, and at the time I hardly ever ate sweets or fatty foods (I couldn't stand fried chicken, pizza, burgers, fries, ect) and I still had 0 luck with losing weight. I eventually lost hope and when I got into a relationship I put on weight bc fat and happy and all. I have a knee injury and ofc my ortho told me I need to lose weight to alleviate stress on my knee and said I should ask my pcp for a nutrition and exercise plan. Went to my pcp and she just told me to go to a transformation clinic... As if I have the gd money for that!! 🙄 all it did was make me feel hopeless that I'd ever get professional help because all they'd ever tell me is "yeah just diet and exercise" and with my past experience of that doing Jack all for me it left me with like "well heck what do I do now". I'm starting to watch what I eat more and exercising but with my knee injury I'm always worried I'm going to make it swell again and I'll be bedridden again 😫 so it's just a nasty cycle of guesswork and losing trust in doctors that should be helping me.

Yesss! Pretty much all of them always say "losing weight will help with (insert issue)" I have always had issues with losing weight and finding the right things to eat for my body. Having everyone tell me to lose weight hurts. In 2019 I saw my OBGYN for the first time and I love her because she says everything straight as it is. She explained what PCOS is and why I have struggles losing weight. She also explained that losing weight WOULD help, but is challenging. I think the acknowledgment of someone knowing how hard it is, explaining things to me, and actually caring about me was a life changer. She's the only one I trust to do my pap smear :)