Overweight Healthcare Workers

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Imagine a weigh in as part of your employment application… followed by a reassessment throughout the year. Could this be a reality in the future? Since hospitals stopped hiring smokers - it does bring up the question: How far could employment requirements go?

Whilst hospital staff should be shining examples of health and happiness, the reality is, we are really just normal people; Some mothers and fathers, many of us struggling to manage long shifts combined with our other responsibilities.

Nurses work long hours, and throughout the day must put their needs aside for their patients, making it especially hard to stay healthy. I do believe it is possible to stay healthy and fit on the job. However, it does take a tremendous amount of planning, focus and discipline.

Some argue that patients will not accept our advice or education when they think we do not care for our own bodies as they think we should. In this situation, stick to the research and facts. Regardless of your own health issues, it does not have any effect on your patients.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
How common is this?

Depends upon where you work. In Seattle, rarely happened. On the east coast -- we had a few RNs who would leave the ICU every couple of hours for a half hour smoke break. I hated when they were all on together, because they didn't care how short they left the unit as long as they got their smoke breaks.

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Depends upon where you work. In Seattle, rarely happened. On the east coast -- we had a few RNs who would leave the ICU every couple of hours for a half hour smoke break. I hated when they were all on together, because they didn't care how short they left the unit as long as they got their smoke breaks.

Here in California I've only known a few but I don't work inpatient so I have limited exposure.

Too bad the pull for basic self care, i.e. bathroom breaks, drinking and eating, wasn't as strong.

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Years ago a nurse with greater experience than I said to me, "the problem in nursing is that Nurses EAT their Young !" Please, folks, let's not do that here. Instead let's appreciate CONTENT and not fault the packaging. Supporting one another would be such a wonderful change !

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I know I played russian roulette with my body but I use to be overweight close to 300lbs and lost over 100 lbs you know how?

Do any of you Nurses know what Polyuria is?

I know I made my blood very acidic but I never developed dKA..

I dont know what comatose feels like but do patients dream in Coma?

Common to drink 2 gallons of diet coke in 3 min from severe dehydration. What use to be a small Dixie cup to satisfy my thirst now requires 2 gallons.

Its not fun but it feels great fitting in clothes that I haven't worn in 20 years.

Insulin puts on weight!! I rather be a kidney patient & skinny than be fat and healthy..

Acute renal failure?? No problem. That's why there's dialysis everywhere! If no one had ARF, than how can dialysis clinics make money?

What I hate about ARF, is that your not suppose to have potassium. So that means no more Lucky Charms since I can't have milk???

I live on Lucky Charms!!

I didn't need to spend any money on weight loss or read Dr OZ weight loss magazines or do the lap ban...

.

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When I was hired as a telephone switchman in 1974, I was weighed in and at 120, i was told that I weighed 4 lbs. too much to be hired. I was then forced to lift my long skirt that I had dressed up in for my interview. I was advised that they were checking to make sure I was not wearing platform heels which were forbidden because of broken ankles (of course this was interview attire and I never wore anything but steel toed boots to work once hired. THEN I went to RN school where I was again weighed in...and again told I weighed too much !!! I had to get a signed note from an endocrinologist to enter RN school. Failed marriage, 3 kids, a bitter divorce, my rapist escaped punishment and I have never been that thin again...to think that I was once only 4 lbs overweight !!! Now as a patient, I am called morbidly obese and discriminated against very time I go for even a pap smear or mammogram....and they wonder why we don't visit the doctor more often? shaming and disrespectful treatment...the real complaint is ignored while i am either lectured by some skiny **** of a teenager or some doctor who makes me look thin. It drives me to tears. I would love to have been pretty, but I was born with physical handicaps...my clothes cover most of the physical scars now and I have lived a full 50 yrs longer than expected, but society is still taunting me for not being pretty AND worst of all they do it under the guise of "health".

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.
Your statement is contradicting. Usually a "fitness freak" depending on your definition of the label, knows a great deal about the human body and the discipline (which some may call, a borderline unhealthy self-obsession, but so is stuffing your face with oreos every day) required to maintain it. So in contrast to your choice, I'd rather have the fitness freak. No way in hell I'm going to take seriously the overweight person telling me I need to run three times a week for 30 minutes at a time in order to be "in good health." When I know damn well running is probably the least efficient way to get back in shape. Cheers mate :]

Addressing the first bolded point: Fitness knowledge does not equate with nursing knowledge. If your logic were true, a personal trainer could function as an RN. Likewise an RN's level of discipline with regards to his/her own health doesn't mean they have spot on nursing knowledge, it means they know how to maintain a nutrition and exercise regimen. Now I'm not sure what setting you work in, but in my setting (surgical/trauma/neuro ICU) physical fitness knowledge is usless. Critical care knowledge is the difference between life and death.

For the second point, why not? Does an RN's physical appearance make information less true? Besides, how do you know that a 250lb RN wasn't 300lbs 6 months ago -- because s/he has been running 3x a week and cut out refined sugar?

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Addressing the first bolded point: Fitness knowledge does not equate with nursing knowledge. If your logic were true, a personal trainer could function as an RN. Likewise an RN's level of discipline with regards to his/her own health doesn't mean they have spot on nursing knowledge, it means they know how to maintain a nutrition and exercise regimen. Now I'm not sure what setting you work in, but in my setting (surgical/trauma/neuro ICU) physical fitness knowledge is usless. Critical care knowledge is the difference between life and death.

For the second point, why not? Does an RN's physical appearance make information less true? Besides, how do you know that a 250lb RN wasn't 300lbs 6 months ago -- because s/he has been running 3x a week and cut out refined sugar?

If I gain weight from eating Wendy's, Is Dave Thomas the one to blame?

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Specializes in Trauma, Pain Managaement.

There are so many reasons that this is bull--- I eat well, am a constant member of Weight Watchers to make sure that I'm eating well, am a gym rat, used to play roller derby (so tons of cardio as well as drills that ensure flexibility and strength), and try to maintain that level of athleticism. And guess what? I am fat. I am 5'4" and 230pounds, which is more than I want to be, but my goal weight is 200- which still puts me as obese. I am heavily muscled, and do a lot of weight lifting. I have coworkers that are tiny and skinny and healthy looking who tell me how in awe they are of how much I do in the gym and how active I am at work, and wow you eat such healthy foods.

SO, SO many reasons that a person's weight cannot be a marker of their overall health. It's disappointing to continue seeing this kind of talk, despite many, many studies that have shown that weight is a poor indicator of health and healthy behaviours.

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This is a legitimate concern: (I say as I sit here eating my XXL stuft burrito). My local hospital systems test for cotitine which is the nicotine by-product - it goes back 3 months.

They also offer discounted health insurance premiums for those that maintain a BMI under 29.

Here is some more info:

Support the program's objectives in all facets of your business, e.g., healthy foods in cafeterias, vending machines, meetings and business-related events.

Allow employees time for healthy activities. For example, extend lunch breaks for on-site health-related activities, such as fitness classes, yoga, walking clubs and cooking lessons.

Encourage work/life balance, e.g., urge employees to take their vacation time.

This would be incredible to have it happen. One place I worked closed the cafeteria and night shift got stuck with bring your own or eat questionable items out of vending machines. No salads or fresh fruits or veggies. And as for work/life balance, that never happens. No vacation time from mid November to after New Years! And to get any time in July, you have to put in for it a year in advance. Only the very first place I ever worked offered what they called mental health days. They were well staffed and you were given 6 mental health days, in addition to vacation, personal days, and holidays, to call off if you were just too stressed to come in. They don't do it anymore but it was great.

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There are so many reasons that this is bull--- I eat well, am a constant member of Weight Watchers to make sure that I'm eating well, am a gym rat, used to play roller derby (so tons of cardio as well as drills that ensure flexibility and strength), and try to maintain that level of athleticism. And guess what? I am fat. I am 5'4" and 230pounds, which is more than I want to be, but my goal weight is 200- which still puts me as obese. I am heavily muscled, and do a lot of weight lifting. I have coworkers that are tiny and skinny and healthy looking who tell me how in awe they are of how much I do in the gym and how active I am at work, and wow you eat such healthy foods.

SO, SO many reasons that a person's weight cannot be a marker of their overall health. It's disappointing to continue seeing this kind of talk, despite many, many studies that have shown that weight is a poor indicator of health and healthy behaviours.

Do you consider yourself an outlier or representative of the majority who are overweight or obese?

Since the topic is about a general group versus a specified individual, is greater than 2/3rds of US population being overweight or obese a poor indicator of our collective health?

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