stay calm and emotionless when talking to overweight people

The discussion about whether to call people fat, obese, overweight or just say that they are suffering from weight problems never seems to end and everybody seems to have their own opinion!  A recent survey done with almost 400 obese men and women in Philadelphia asked them to categorize which word they found the most offensive and which they found the most sensitive. The results show that obesity, obese, fat and you are way too fat were among the most offensive and that the simple term –weight- was considered to be the least offensive.

At Ukmedix News we have often promoted the idea that you should be sensitive when discussing peoples weight but at the same time there is no excuse for not calling a spade a spade and warning people of the severe dangers that obesity brings with. Doctors in the UK say that they often avoid talking about somebodys weight problem when they come in for some medical treatment.

If for example somebody comes in complaining of aches and pains in their joints, many doctors would just prescribe something to deal with that problem directly rather than getting to the root cause of the problem which is the extra weight that they are carrying.

It is possible to talk to overweight people directly without being offensive. You can tell them that being overweight drastically increases the chances of them getting cancer, heart disease, a stroke and practically every other disease and illness known to man. The important thing is that you do not get angry and that you stay calm and emotionless when talking to overweight people but that you clearly spell out the health dangers that their condition will bring on.

It is also important that doctors do not allow overweight patients to leave their clinics without telling them that they their health will improve if they lose weight. Telling someone they need to lose weight implies that they need to do it because they do not fit into the accepted norm of society but telling somebody that their health will drastically improve and that they will have a better quality of life if they lose weight implies a more positive message.

At the end of the day there is no perfect way to talk to somebody about their weight problem but if you do it with sensitivity and understanding you are much more likely to get them to listen to you!