Balancing Between Informing and Shaming
There has been much talk about obesity in the media of late. The main story is about obesity links with cancer. This obviously it is essential to get the word out about health risks. But sometimes the advice given becomes more lecturing and shaming rather than informing.
Obesity is something that many people have strong views on. These views are held by both those who are obese and those who are not. There are many who feel that shaming a person who is fat in order to change their behaviour is perfectly legitimate. However, as I have written before on a few occasions, there is no evidence to show that shaming a person to lose weight gets the long term results as necessary.
There are those who bully with at least the intention to help, but there are those who bully because they are cruel. Be that child or adult, the number of people who come to my office who have suffered some form of bullying because of their size is staggering.
We need to embrace good health, but we also need to embrace civility and kindness too. We must not judge others because of their size, sex or beliefs. If we all embraced this, the need for people like me would be decreased.
