Christina Patterson: Sister, stop stuffing your face
No one expects nurses to look like supermodels, or lap dancers
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Independent Minds
At regular intervals in my adult life, I've been through the following ritual: I'm sitting reading a book when a gargantuan creature comes lumbering over, and marches me to what might or might not be a scaffold. After a few adjustments, I am placed against a wall. Moments later, after staring at a chart, and making a calculation that is clearly more taxing than the post fiscal stimulus national debt, the creature nods. Yes, she says curtly, my BMI is OK.
The creature is, of course, a nurse and yes, my BMI is OK. Hers, however, is not. But we are not here to measure her BMI. We are here to sit in a waiting room for hours, ideally one that's full of giant tellies with the volume turned up to maximum level, so that I can then be summoned to see a registrar who may or may not have read my notes and discuss the myriad ways in which my normal-sized body has let me down.
Other normal-sized friends have been told by giant doctors that they are fat. Doctors who don't chuckle heartily and present their verdict in an isn't-this-ridiculous-but-I'm-just-following-orders sort of way. Doctors, indeed, who appear to have no sense of irony, no sense of humour, no sense of the surreal. Because it is surreal, I'm afraid, to be lectured on your weight by someone whose mass of accumulated adipose tissue is considerably greater than yours.
No one expects nurses to look like supermodels, or lap dancers, or air hostesses, or even like anything that might ever have inspired an erotic fantasy (the PVC "nurses' uniforms" at Ann Summers don't, I think, bear much resemblance to the current shapeless tunic and trousers), but you don't expect them all to look like Hattie Jacques either. And at least Hattie Jacques knew how to smile. You might, however, reasonably expect the custodians of the nation's health not to look as though they were about to consume the GDP of Iceland in medication for diabetes, and you might expect the custodians of the nation's health to at least have glanced at some of the leaflets on obesity they so lugubriously hand out.
More than half the NHS's 1.2 million staff are overweight, apparently, and 300,000 are obese. And now, in a marvellous example of "joined-up thinking", the Government has decided that it might be a good idea to increase "the credibility of health messages" by looking at the "behaviour of health professionals". By inviting NHS staff for – wait for it – a check on their BMI.
Well, let's hope it works. It might, I fear, take rather more than that for people who have survived three years of training in the human body and emerged convinced that it's an organism that functions best on chocolate and chips to spearhead the revolution we all need. Particularly when they're all miserable about their pay and convinced – in spite of the counter-evidence of great swathes of the day spent chatting – that they're collapsing with stress.
But we've got to start somewhere, and at least they have a job – a job, unlike many of their patients, they're unlikely to lose – and maybe it's time they started to do their bit in helping to transform this lumbering, wheezing, tax-guzzling dinosaur of a national health service into something "fit for purpose" (in John Reid's ghastly phrase) – or even something that's just halfway fit.
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Comments
You sound like you're having a bad day. Seriously, you sound totally jaded and judgmental. I get the message you're trying to deliver. Of course it is ironic to have a health professional comment on weight when they're over weight. It is also ironic when they comment on smoking, drinking, drugs, etc. when they do any of the above. However, the average person would not pick up on the fact that maybe they partake in those things. Because unlike fatness it is not worn on the outside ALL the time.
Anyway, my point is, unless you ask them what they're doing about their weight and they actually answer you, you have no way of telling what their opinion is on their weight or what they are doing about it. It does not surprise me that some doctors out there don't laugh their way through telling you to lose weight. They only probably tell a thousand people a week to shape up in some way or another. They are just doing their job. They probably don't really give a fig if you're fat or not. But it would be medically unprofessional to NOT mention it because really, fatness does make a difference in your health...which brings me back to...it is their job!
Of course, I'm probably all worked up about your article because I'm easily 900 pounds and a nurse. I'm probably biased, offended, defensive..you name it. While I can appreciate being short, curt, and trying to make a point...I mean, it is lovely to get someone's attention and you can't always do that with the sappy "you can do it" kind of way...Really, what is wrong with some positive encouragement?? The average fat person can't just decide one day that they're going to quit being fat and instantly change from 400 pounds to 150. By the way, since I am so fat, I know you're looking at me. I know you're judging me. It would just be unprofessional of me to call you on it. And maybe I don't feel like telling EVERY person my story about my life time battle with my weight and my PCOS which helped me get to this point of fatness and how I'm really busy so working out is hard to fit in, blah blah blah. Not all of us are sitting on the couch eating cookies while dreaming about going in to work just to tell you that you're fat. Also, nurses don?t have the job stability that you think they do. Hospitals make cut backs just like everyone else. AND if you were cleaning poo off of 10+ people a day I imagine you?d like a raise as well. As far as stress goes, I?m not stressed, but man do my feet hurt (think my fatness probably does not help with that either).
One last thing before I leave you to it?If your intent was to inspire and push people into self awareness, it did not work on me. I guess I?m a sucker for that mushy stuff after all.
Good day.
Firstly, the national health service is fine. It saved the life of people I know - and I care not if people working in the health service are fat or thin, black or white, straight or gay, or alien life forms. The people I know whose lives were saved are unlike you so do not waste its resources for vain silly reasons. Your being weighed cost the health service money. Is that a good use of resources? No. I want all this stuff NOT to be free to bimbos any more. You pay for your vanity sister. Far too much money is wasted on self-obsessed bimbo parasites like you.
Secondly, as with smoking, being overweight is merely a risk factor in getting illnesses. Being fat - like Churchill (died aged 90) does not mean you'll die young (like Linda McCartney, slim and vegetarian). Our genetic make-up, the diet and health of our mother, our childhood diet - all these are massively important. Social class determines a lot too - footballers (often working class) often die i n their 60s, whereas educated professional people who smoke, drink and eat what they like live to 90. The BMI index is massivelt flawed anyway - it's the balanced diet you eat that is important, NOT your weight.
Your article is so full of inaccuracies it could be called comedy. Or crap.
Remember, being underweight is the most dangerous thing and the most health thing to be is a bit overweight.
But then, we all know why you wrote this article - to slag off those you consider the 'lower classes' who, unlike you, were not born with a silver spoon sticking our of their fannies and got their jobs through work and effort and talent. And the point of Christine Patterson is exactly? The world would've been better off if you'd ended up in a condom.
I also notice that she conflates the roles of doctors and nurses. It is the doctor who tells her she needs to lose weight, but she then comments (with all the insight of someone with an English degree from the University of East Anglia) that nurses, after 3 years training are convinced that humans function "best on chocolate and chips".
To quote her from another Independent piece: "I had a lovely time in Syria in April: loved the art, loved the people, loved the sweets". Perhaps, if she cut down on the sweets, she wouldn't have to spend so much time sitting in hospital outpatient waiting rooms hoarding the venom that was put into this pompous piece of trash.
It wasn't long ago that I had to listen to a criticism of my etire lifestyle from a health professional who concluded with the sentence "Face it, you're just eating too much."
I'm 11 stone and five foot eight. But my real 'crime' is that I'm a Type 1 Diabetic and so I have an NHS examination and lifestyle review every eighteen months or so.
And my accuser on this last ocassion ("Face it, you're just eating too much"), bulged repulsively out of her uniform. I'd guess fourteen stone at five foot six.
I kept my temper, but only just.
I don't know why the author of this article has to be so unpleasant. Has she ever started work at seven in the morning, finished at one in the afternoon, gone back on at five the same afternoon and finished at nine that evening? Try fitting a healthy life style into that routine and see how you manage.
What is really the problem here is the crumbling NHS- and if you think that the nurses can do anything about that- you're wrong. It's pathetic government handling that has got the NHS where it is, and is responsible for the general despondency therein.
Aside from all of that, they are there to tell you about your health, if you don;t want to follow the rules becuase of stubborn pig-headedness at the fact that they themselves might not be practicing exactly what they preach then that's your problem, isn't?
We're all reponsible for our own health, patients and nurses alike.
And I agree with the other posters who have said that this article is unnecessarily nasty.
Fact is, if lots of women didn;t snack and instead ate proper meals - and did some housework - then a lot of them wouldn;t be so overweight. Most young women simply cannoy cook at all - so just eat biscuits and microwaved ready meals - eat that and you get fat. Perhaps we need a return to traditional values? Women never used to be so fat even 20 years ago. We're becoming like the USA now!
It's also a social class issue - most nurses are from the less educated lower social classes - this is the demographic where people eat way too much processed food and snacks and get fat. Overweight male equivalents can be seen on building sites etc.
As for Wormery, responding to your comment... A somewhat hysterical post... (and yes, I'm aware of the etymology, ironic use of language is most fun)... You do deal in stereotypes, don't you! Most young women eat biscuits and microwaved meals and can't cook.... For someone who criticises the media on a regular basis, you do appear to believe many of the myths it creates / perpetuates. One would imagine you must be generalising from experience, so let me do the same! Most young women I know (being one of them also) do come from the lower social classes (although we just happen to be fairly well education) and we all cook meals from scratch, and in fact, hold dinner parties. Also, my dad's a builder, he's not overweight, neither are many of his colleagues. A masculine stereotype you're perpetuating there.... unusual for you!
Steroetypes are based on truth - if you can;t accept that then you are in denial. Like many then.
This is very much a class issue - most obese people are lower social class (even if they have money and degrees - they''ll give anyone one of those these days). Many nurses are too. And many dinner ladies. And many shopworkers and call centre staff. The more educated one is and the more cultured the more one will have had proper meals as a child and a wide range of tastes inherited from one's mother.
Most young British women do not know hw to boil an egg. 70% don't. I do and am an excekent cook like many educated men.
British Women on the other hand are a national disgrace and think cooking = PING! Why do you think supermarkets seel so many ready meals and ready made salads etc? I have to say that most French and europeans and ethnic girls CAN cook - it's just white British girls polluted by feminsim who think being unable to cook is a mark of their 'independence'. Sad really. And their kids will be ill because of it. They stuff biscuits and snacks and ready meals then wonder why they've got such fat arses and say it's bloating! YES BLOATING! Bloating cauaed by Mr Cadbury and chums...
You hold dinner parties? Hilarious. It won;t make you middle class y'know to ape Bridget Jones.
You appear not to be responding to my actual points, so I'll reiterate, my white British friends can cook, very well. No feminist I know, either, believes that not being able to cook is a mark of independence. Neither are most of my white British female friends (and in my social, work and University circles more widely) are fat and blame it on 'bloating'. Once again I can only assume you are generalising from experience and therefore I am responding by doing the same.
I don't aspire to be middle class, nor to any values propagated by 'Bridget Jones'.
Sorry the "tax guzzling dinosaur" of the NHS offends you. Most of us aren't paid a small fortune to vomit our every tiresome incoherent thought onto the page, so we sort of rely on it.
Christina needs a change of wardrobe. Fat birds will always be fat birds. Simple.
My doctor is only 5 foot 8, so as you can imagine, I was furious. How dare such a creature lecture me on childhood nutrition when he looks like Sid James. I didn't even think his sense of the surreal was adequate for a health professional; Marcel Marceau is such old hat.
I thought about posting an article using plenty of negative adjectives and metaphors, but then I thought, actually, perhaps our society judges people a bit too much on how they look, and we should actually take time to understand people before jumping to conclusions.
I don't have a problem with my doctor giving me advice when she's overweight. I mean I'm responsible for my health for god's sake and she's pretty nice about it so I don't get all offended.
I've been 15kg more than I am now. I lost weight because I had a break from nursing, then starting working in a desk job. Go figure. When I was giving people advice back in the day, I would sit down and say, "look I know how it feels, I know I need to lose weight, but you will feel better and be healthier if you lose a few pounds, I've been there I know how difficult it is". Most patients, if not all, reacted well to that as I was empathising with them. At the end of the day people will lose weight, stop smoking, cut down on their drinking or get healthy when they want to, not because a health professional is lecturing at them.
My feeling is that most people expect nurses to look like they do on TV or whatever then act all disappointed when they find out that's not the case in real life.
Let's face it, if the nurse was young and thin, you would have probably had a problem with that.
I'd try to enlighten you, but it is pretty obvious from this hateful, spite-filled piece that it is just not worth my time.
Suffice it to say I'll never bother to buy the Independent again.
most of the general public listen to health warnings, weigh them up according to their experiences and then decide what to do. They don't dismiss them based upon what the person giving the advice looks like.
Why not give your job to someone who works in the health service, has first hand experience of how this government's policies are is continually making it more problematic for services to care for people with serious problems like severe mental illness, homelessness, poverty and so on? Then, readers might learn something and you could spend your time reading about diets as you seem to accord the topic a lot more importance than the rest of us.
If you do have a weight problem, then I feel very sorry for you, but I also feel bound to point out that making nasty remarks about other people's BMI isn't going to make you any thinner.
NHS consultant surgeon with a 'normal' BMI
Independent, please do not publish writing from this opinion columnist again, She is rude and judgemental about people's bodies and tries to perpetuate and amplify common offensive untrue stereotypes about people of certain sizes. She makes assumptions about what they eat based on appearance, and is apparently much more concerned with someone's size than their ability to do their job. Such vitriol is unbefitting of the standards the Independent aspires to.
Sister, stop stuffing your face.
No one expects nurses to look like supermodels, or lap dancers
More than half the NHS's 1.2 million staff are overweight, apparently, and 300,000 are obese. And now, in a marvellous example of "joined-up thinking", the Government has decided that it might be a good idea to increase "the credibility of health messages" by looking at the "behaviour of health professionals".
When I read the above, I see no face but the belly. Face is the lifting the beauty. Obesity is down lifting the tummy. The regulation as you sate are for the belly. If these women become the beauty queens, they will leave the jobs and join the TV or the cinema if chances allow these.
Do you u see the difference. Better, join them
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla