After seeing an overweight patient with a back problem, Dr. Robert Lamberts of Augusta, Ga., decided to blog about it. Last week, I linked to his blog and asked readers “Should Doctors Lecture Patients About Their Weight? ”
More than 700 of you responded. Many readers were grateful that Dr. Lamberts seemed to understand their plight. Others offered their own stories of being lectured by doctors.
“If shaming and being a social pariah was sufficient to get people to lose weight, there would be no fat people,” wrote reader Jill. “The stress of dealing with fat-hatred is, I believe, a bigger threat to health than weight is.”
Dr. Lamberts thinks it’s counterproductive to “scold” patients about their weight. “It makes people not want to come into the office,” he said. “They don’t want to walk into scorn.”
