Nothing provided says anything about this woman's health condition other than her doctor thought she was obese. So her croaking and her family suing for malpractice (while it might happen) is a straw-man argument. The question at hand is whether or not the doctor should make unsolicited comments about her weight when they have no direct correlation to the problem she is seeing a doctor about. For example, if you saw your doctor about a sinus infection and, after describing your symptoms, his first comment was, "You know, you could stand to gain 20 pounds." I'm suggesting that would be seen as odd and inappropriate. Likewise, if he suggested you lose weight. We don't know why the woman in the article first saw her doctor, but given that she complained, I'd guess it didn't have to do with her weight or a weight-related health problem.
I'm also not saying that there are no long-term health problems associated with obesity. I do think it far more important to live in a healthy manner (eating nutritous foods, getting adequate exercise, maintaining mental stimulation) than to worry about the 10, 40, or 100 pounds one weighs over some arbitrary number.
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Date: 2005-08-24 05:43 pm (UTC)I'm also not saying that there are no long-term health problems associated with obesity. I do think it far more important to live in a healthy manner (eating nutritous foods, getting adequate exercise, maintaining mental stimulation) than to worry about the 10, 40, or 100 pounds one weighs over some arbitrary number.