The War On Fat - Page 15

heh.... YEARS ago, I was just hanging out with friends when some dude walked up to us and said that if we didn't lose weight we would die. (3 or 4 of the half dozen of us were big folks)

I gave him my very best "astonished wide-eyed child at christmas" look and said "oh my god... you're IMMORTAL???"

We followed this clown around for a good 10 minutes asking how old he was, if he had ever met (random historical figures), if his immortality was from being skinny or if he wasn't human, but an ancient god in human form, and that kinda crap.

BlueGrassRN. I have to say, I really respect your attitude toward the topic at hand. It's easy to become a little jaded by the negative attitudes I've encountered (and I'm sure I'll always encounter) on the path to becoming a nurse. So I appreciate the good .


Crazed, I meant to add that I've been in situations similar to you. Not about weight, but I'm a mix-y...half black/half white. There have been a few times friends and family have made racist comments in front of me, and when it was brought to their attention, I was informed that they weren't talking about ME! They don't think of me as a REAL black person, I'm different, or the good kind, or whatever. I'm not a super sensitive person, but it still irks me. I don't WANT to be an exception...I want you to grow up and realize you're harboring some serious prejudices against people! Ugh. Sorry for the slightly unrelated vent.

Bahaha! And that right there is exactly why I said I'm not planning on telling everyone they're going to die. I knew someone would conjure up some image of me chasing down overweight people in my car and running them off the road to tell them they need to lose weight

I must say, though, if I ever find myself in that same situation, I'll be stealing your approach. Touché.

[QUOTE=Stephalump;6484658]BlueGrassRN. I have to say, I really respect your attitude toward the topic at hand. It's easy to become a little jaded by the negative attitudes I've encountered (and I'm sure I'll always encounter) on the path to becoming a nurse. So I appreciate the good .


Why, thank you.

I should add, these conversations shouldn't just occur with obese people. Seriously, I think we tend to focus on them because there is visible evidence of a lifestyle that could use some improvement. MOST of my pts, thin or thick, can stand to improve their diets and lifestyles. ALL pts should have their health knowledge and lifestyle practices assessed, and if improvements can be made, we should be encouraging them. Who wouldn't benefit from an extra little bit of exercise and more fresh fruits and veggies?

Really??

Yikes...I mean I hope you don't get on their bad side one day, because those epithets may be used to describe you

Sometimes you wonder how we get to old age and still hold narrow views like that! A shame.

True story. It's hard to wrap your head around, but the worst offender by far has been my own mother.
I'm mortified every time I think about my childhood best friend. In 3rd grade, I told her I wasn't going to play with her anymore because she was black. Just following orders from home.
In middle school, I was forced to break up with my Filipino "boyfriend" because I needed to be with someone with "lighter skin.". I was raised to only check the "Caucasian" box on forms that asked for race. And I was told I should be grateful I never knew my father and his side of the family because our lifestyle doesn't coincide with black people's lifestyle of sitting on the porch doing nothing all day. No lie.
My father in law is similar. He loves me and his (also mixed) grandchildren, but he's used the N word in front of me a few times, only to say he wasn't talking about us, of course.
And that's just scratching the surface!

Anyway, I just think that's an interesting part of human nature. Rather than seeing exceptions to our prejudices as proof that our thinking is over generalized and incorrect, people are fully capable of taking the exceptions and putting them into a DIFFERENT category so they can keep on hating.

No thank you.

My youngest brother is mixed, half black and half white. Everyone knows it. Yet I have also had people tell me racist jokes and use the N work around me. I am quick to remind them that I have no tolerace for that kind of hate.

Nurses are not "examples" for our patients. It is not a job requirement! We're humans and have flaws and the job itself is inherently unhealthy and stressful to begin with! We are being bombard with sensory overload with constant jarring alarms, jumping from room to room and patient to patient, everyone pulling at us at the same time, expected to sacrifice sleep, meals, breaks and to be superhuman and work 16 hours at the drop of the hat because the hospital is short staffed.

So this BS about being healthy examples for patients is an underhanded way to judge others for not being in perfectly thin and healthy shiny role model's ie trophy nurses to showcase for nurses week who appear magically healthy, happy, thin and stressfree while being a martyr for the hospitals benefit. Give me a break!

It doesn't take a rocket science to realize nursing is bad for your health and health studies have born this out and that shift work and stress is linked to obesity, HTN (alarms as well), cardiovascular disease and cancer to name a few. We are hired for our brains, bodies, and our shiny nursing license, but we are easily replaceable!

Yes we can all make healthful changes in our lifestyle at least to some degree, but the truth is most obese people will never be thin save drastic actions like the biggest loser or gastric bypass surgery and instead of attacking obese people, we need to accept this and demand that our employer provide safe, adequate lift equipment to care for them without injuring ourselves.

I am not prejudiced but I got an acute understanding last night how one becomes so. A 320 lb patient who insists they are too heavy to help move themself but gets upset when I cannot help position them for comfort every 20 minutes or so. Even with two of us and trendelenberg I have a sore back the likes of which I have never known. I had no problem telling the patient tonight that there would be no repositioning without four people to help and that would take time to gather. They sulked a great deal but I am afraid I do not feel bad at all. I will not sacrifice my health for my patients.

To the OP - I think your wording of "war on fat" and "militant anti-fat" is a little bit extreme. Perhaps there are nurses like this, but I personally have never met any. A lot of people on AN have wondered why nurses "hate" on fat people and I think that is a very strong word too. As you mentioned, you are a student, and probably have not had a ton of exposure to a huge variety of patients. However, once you have, you will probably understand the frustration of dealing with certain patient populations - such as the morbidly obese. And I don't mean "heavy" or "chunky" or "could stand to lose 50lbs". Whatever the reason is that caused this person to be upwards of 400lbs doesn't change the fact that our job is now waaaay harder. I'm in no way negating their psychological over-eating, or their hormone imbalances, or whatever. But it is frustrating when 10 staff members have to stop patient care in order to transfer a >700lb woman to a bed. Or when 5 people have to hold up a man's belly in order to find his penis. Or when we injure our backs trying to boost a 400lb woman. I don't think most nurses are hateful or militant. I think they are frustrated at an already difficult job being made a lot more difficult, regardless of the background reason of how the person got that way.
Just yesterday we "coded" a young woman who was morbidly obese (350-400lbs). We knew nothing about her history, so no idea how she got that way. However, it was the most traumatic code for both patient and staff, as we were unsuccessful obtaining an airway through intubation, and it took multiple attempts to "crike" her which was finally achieved by ENT, due to her neck size. Additionally we could hardly do chest compressions because her breasts and belly were so huge. Her arms and legs were literally falling off the stretcher and we had to keep catching them. Unfortunately, we were not able to resucitate her (despite seriously heroic measures) and she passed away. Of course, no one can say that things would have definitely turned out differently, but intubation was attempted as soon as she became unresponsive, and in a smaller person with a less difficult airway that could've been enough, she may never have gone into cardiac arrest, may never have needed the crike and she may have lived. The point I am trying to make is that obesity complicates everything, and makes our job of trying to help our patients so very difficult.