My mom was a beautiful woman, who had a beautiful body. She exercised regularly, ate mostly healthy foods, and tried to take care of herself the best that she could. She was what would be considered a perfect weight, given that she had a small, size 4/6 frame. My mom was always much smaller than me, & I was terrified that she was going to outlive me because I am around 200lbs, and only a few inches taller than my mother.

One night, while on vacation, my mom’s heart failed, and she died in her sleep.

My dad, concerned for mine, my two brothers’ and my sisters’ well-being, as well as his own, signed us all up to have check-ups with a cardiologist, because we are all overweight to some degree and if my mom could die of heart failure, surely we are more likely to die of it than her. (This was his reasoning – not mine.)

The cardiologist, upon hearing that my mom died of a heart attack, immediately began talking about how the obese are more likely to die of such a thing – and then implied that my mother had been obese, going so far as to say that if she had taken better care of her health, she wouldn’t have died in the first place.

Seething, I told the doctor that my mother had been nowhere near overweight, and exercised four times a week, at the least. The doctor was incredibly surprised, and implied that she didn’t believe me.

I couldn’t understand the immediate assumption that my mother had had a weight problem. Did this doctor honestly believe that only overweight people can die of heart attacks?

Thank you for bringing this problem to light. I don’t feel so alone anymore.

Here is another article FYI, in the same vein:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/health/research/26child.html?ref=health

This one preaches that food allergies in children are associated with childhood obesity.
So, instead of stating clearly that 1) cross sectional association cannot show that ‘a’ causes ‘b’ and therefore 2) it’s equally likely that food allergies may be triggering obesity or 3) that both are triggered by some other underlying issue, the article goes on to state that clearly, childhood obesity is leading to food allergies.
Thus crack down harder on childhood obesity.

And Ochsner? Yeah, that’s our GOOD hospital.

In AZ, driver’s licenses are good for 35 years. I’ve been below the weight on mine and way above it now. But I won’t have to get it changed for a good long time.

I agree about the nurse practitioner thing, one year I made the mistake of making an appointment with the doctor for my pap instead, just because it fit the schedule, at that time I was at a perfectly normal weight even by Met Life charts, visibly Not Going To Die Of Teh Fatz, she weighs me and checks my height, then tells me I need to lose weight. Given the narrow ranges on those charts, when you weigh someone barefoot and then *subtract two inches for shoes*, instant fattie. Of course, you could always just *look* at your patient, but that would involve admitting that you have a human being in front of you. After this, I was further humiliated by being told I scheduled it a week too early – um, *your office* scheduled it for me and knew when I had my last one – for OHIP to pay for it, and I’d have to come back. Turns out she wanted to bill for an (unnecessary, as I have a regular family doctor who I see for other things) full physical, where the NP is fine with just billing for a pap. Guess who I made the next appointment with?

Even with a female doctor, you’re screwed merely by being a woman. And ever seem to notice how heavier male doctors (just like many other men as they age – men growing a beer gut is normal, but they complain about their wives “letting themselves go”) never seem to notice that *they’re* fat?