Not much on the telly tonight, so I ended up watching "My 600 lb. Life" --- the show where folks go to Houston for bariatric surgery… some successful, some not so much.
After watching a couple episodes, I'm left with some mixed feelings.
Is super morbid obesity:
1) a disease along the same lines as alcoholism and drug addiction?
2) a lifestyle issue (poor food choices, lack of exercise, laziness)?
3) a mental health issue (poor self esteem, depression, etc.)?
What have you seen in your practice re: number of super morbidly obese admissions, bariatric surgeries, disease processes related to super morbid obesity, difficulty caring for super morbidly obese patients.
Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).
Most Christians do their best to study the Bible with an intention to understand the will of God in their lives. Only a very few people claim to be Bible experts, I am not one and have never suggested as much. I have studied it as one of my personal hobbies and favorite things to do, however.
Having said that, I do feel that I have a good grasp of what the Bible is telling us. Particularly in the NT, I believe it is telling us that we should be living our lives in the example of the Christ. In my view, the NT is telling us to emulate the compassion, the mercy, the forgiveness, the charity, and the self control of Jesus (there are probably other attributes that I might mention if I were to think deeply about this, but I think this makes my point). We are each called in our faith to enjoy an individual relationship with God, the depth and strength of that relationship grows as we pray, study the word, and consider the temptations and stumbling blocks of this time and place.
I love discussions of faith amongst believers and even don't mind contentious discussions in mixed faith groups (non believers, believers in multiple faiths, etc) as long as the majority can maintain calm, leaving emotional reactionary language out of the dialog. A portion of studying the Bible is ability to recognize when someone is attributing a belief or behavior or similar upon something which is NOT in line with the Word. I love when scripture is interjected into our conversations, it is simply important to represent it carefully.
So, in answer to your question; each of us would have to decide, based upon our own experience, knowledge base, and understanding of Scripture to discern who is most knowledgeable and wise about the Word of God. Mostly, I think a person's knowledge and comprehension of the Bible is reflected in how they treat other people and how they treat themselves while they live in praise of God.
If 2/3rds of our population were addicted to tobacco and had the associated health problems for tax payers to cover, where would we start to address the problem? At pointing fingers to their weak willedness to quit? Not at the tobacco itself?
Why not start excluding other at risk groups like athletes and extreme weekend warriors? Why is it okay to shame the overweight and question their will when it's not considered polite or okay to do so to others who are at risk from their own behaviors. Also, being overweight is not always about willpower or addiction but it's okay to lump all overweight people into this? We need to eat.
Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).
Why not start excluding other at risk groups like athletes and extreme weekend warriors? Why is it okay to shame the overweight and question their will when it's not considered polite or okay to do so to others who are at risk from their own behaviors. Also, being overweight is not always about willpower or addiction but it's okay to lump all overweight people into this? We need to eat.
And at what point do we as nurses get to decide who is more or less deserving of compassionate care than another person. The oath I took did not have a clause that said I will care for you unless I don't like you or agree with your lifestyle choices. There was a time when people of color could not be treated in white hospitals, when homesexuals were considered mentally ill and God-forbid someone was of mixed race through no fault of their own. When I walk through the doors of my unit I always try to put my political views and social shortcomings behind. I remember when I first started nursing back in 2002. I was working in L & D in a hospital in a prodomiately white, upper class, conservative city. A female couple came in and had their baby ( with the help of a sperm donor) The DON made a big deal about if any nurse had a problem for careing for a homosexual couple. The nurse next to me said. "The fact that they are both going to burn in hell is not my business, She's a new mother and needs care!" Watching her with that couple and that baby you would never have known her true feelings" Do we give less than compassionate care to the AIDS patient because they got the disease by sharing needles? No so why be less than compassionate to the obese person. We are not going to fix it in a 3 day hospital stay.
Do we give less than compassionate care to the AIDS patient because they got the disease by sharing needles?
I've unfortunately witnessed a case of this, although the young man in our care was infected through unprotected anal sex, not needles. And he was young, too, 30s....and y'all know I work hospice. So sad. I can't go into details because they'd make the case identifiable, but I'm ashamed to say one of our nurses violated that poor dying young man in a cruel way that should be below any human being, much less a nurse.
ETA: the way I wrote it makes it sound like a physical assault, but it wasn't. It was a mental/spiritual/emotional assault.
Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
I've had a very long career in nursing.
Unfortunately, yeah, I have seen RNs give less than good care to people for whom they feel disdain. I have seen patients wait for care, suffer through very poorly masked verbal and nonverbal communication which is clearly NOT professional or kind, and through very arrogant and dismissive attitudes and policies in health care settings, because the nurse(s) does not approve of their "lifestyle" or are offended by some other aspect of the patient's personal life.
We see in threads here on AN that a percentage of nurses hold very strong personal feelings about some types of patients in their health care settings. We also see that too many of them seem to feel entitled to demonstrate their feelings and attitudes, etc, as a portion of their work; or they simply don't have the social skills to maintain a professional demeanor and posture relative to that sort of thing when dealing with the public. Either way, it is not professional and it reflects poorly on nurses in general. IMHO
hppygr8ful, ASN, RN, EMT-I
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So beautifully said