Research Paper on Fat Shaming

Fat shaming is a problem across the world but is a massive issue in the American field of medicine. Doctors fixating on someone not being the” right” size not only causes them to miss other issues, but it also causes emotional stress and trauma to the patient as shown in the picture. This kind of treatment can leave mental and emotional scars that can create a sense of fear in the patient causing them to not want to go back to the doctor for symptoms that could connect to life threatening issues. I have had the negative effects of a fat-shaming doctor in my search for health care, it led me on many wrong paths and unhealthy diets that left me hungry and created many sleepless nights. I bounced from doctor to doctor with chronic pain, fatigue, and mind fog just to have them send me down one rabbit hole after another. Until finally one day I advocated for myself and demanded blood tests be run to find out I have chronic inflammation throughout my body. My problem which had been pushed off as being overweight could have been discovered by a few simple blood tests years ago. Therefore, my journey towards better health could be further along than it is at this current time. These kinds of experiences are what Magane focuses on throughout her writing. In her article “Fat-Shaming Doctors Mean People Don’t get the Diagnoses They need” Azmia Magane talks about this issue and other problems a fat shaming doctor can cause. She uses multiple rhetorical strategies throughout her article to make it appealing to a broader audience and a more enjoyable read than most articles of this nature. 

From the beginning of the article Magane uses her own experience to describe what being fat- shamed and ignored by a doctor is and how it affected her personally. By using her own experience as a start to the article Magane uses pathos to create a bond with her reader. She shows herself in a moment of vulnerableness when she tells her story about the doctor and how they shoved her worries aside. “I stared at the referral in my hand for a bariatric surgeon, dumbfounded. “If you lose some weight, you’ll feel a lot better,” my gynecologist told me. I didn’t doubt that the weight I’d gained after six months of near-continuous steroid use was hard on my body, but that wasn’t why I came to the doctor.” (Magane par 1) In giving her own example Magane shows her vulnerable side and adds emotion to her article. The reader wants something to make them have a feeling for what they are reading. If this is absent then the reader will be detached and non-interested. But in her section “I’d come because I was having abdominal pain and pain with intercourse. With my history of surgically diagnosed stage IV endometriosis, hypereosiniphilic syndrome, and lupus, “lose weight” isn’t what I’d expected my gynecologist to tell me, especially after I’d presented him with an MRI diagnosing adenomyosis, a condition where endometrial tissue grows into the uterine wall. It took me approximately 11 more months and four more doctors before I had surgery to treat these issues. But my situation isn’t uncommon.” (Magane par 1,2) Magane wraps her experience around and connects it with the reader by saying her situation is experienced by many others.  

As Magane writes she keeps a connection with her reader in the way she keeps a non-formal tone throughout the article that makes it a simple and informative read for her audience. She is careful to keep scholarly writing out of the article so that she keeps her focus audience interested and focused on what they are reading. This helps the reader to stay interested and engaged with the writer as they read the article. If this were not the case the reader would get bored and just skim over the words or not even bother with it at all. To add to the friendly tone, she also has a slight sense of urgency and importance in the tone of her writing. The reader can clearly tell that she is passionate about the subject matter. “Tell me something I don’t know, doc — like what to do about the symptoms I’m telling you about. Anything less is substandard care. I love myself too much — every last pound of me — to stay in a relationship where I’m not being heard, whether it’s a friendship, a romantic relationship, or with my health care provider.” (Magane par 18) In this quote from the article you can also clearly see her annoyance with the situation. Most people know the feeling Magane is having in this quote. This is the feeling of being overlooked and pushed aside because you do not fit in the box society made for you. This gives the reader a want for justice for Magane and in the end themselves.  

Magane is also careful to add information from reputable sources. She uses logos in this way to give information such as what is in the following quote “Researcher Christian Crandall showed how attitudes toward fat people are shaped by the American emphasis on “bootstrapping” — individualism, personal responsibility, and self-discipline — in a 1994 article published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.” (Magane par 10) and dietitian ““The concept of Health At Every Size doesn’t say that people are in the body that is healthiest for them, but that people can be healthy at [any] body weight,” Tryon says” in her article. By giving these references from reputable sources she shows the reader she did her research and understands the subject matter of her argument. In addition, she shows the reader that she is not just stating her opinion. She provides evidence that what she is saying is true and an actual problem that is being noticed by people who can verify the facts are true. This also tells the reader that not just Magane has strong views on this subject. People do care and want to find things to try and fix the problems. The one thing I find missing is the ways to try and fix these issues that are not mentioned in this article which can give it a feeling of being an emotionally charged rant instead of an argument. This could be more of Magane was going for but the added information would have incerted some more logo’s into her article.  

She also gives first person accounts from other victims of this hurtful bias. “In 2016 ... I’d lost a significant amount of weight and I was able to hike and scale mountains," Dionne tells Bustle. “But when I got to New York, I began gaining weight without explanation or cause. I was still exercising as much as I’d been before. My eating habits hadn’t changed at all. And yet, my body felt awful,” Dionne says. She remembers feeling “swollen,” and being short of breath easily, on top of having constant back pain. “When I went to see a primary care doctor, she told me all of my symptoms were caused by my weight, and that I needed to lose more than 100 pounds if I wanted to feel better." (Dionne par 5) In doing this she adds a feeling of inclusiveness so that the reader knows they are not alone and grabs at their hearts causing sympathy and understanding for Dionna and what she was made to go through. This is also adding an audience awareness aspect to her article. She knows the people reading her article will be looking for something to relate to and be able to establish a personal connection too, and with this first-person experience Magane does just that.  

In her article Magane hits on many points of what fat-shaming is and what it is like. She gives her own story and the stories of others in a way that describes the way the image at the top of my paper would feel. In a world already filled with anxiety and stress the last thing someone wants to hear is “you are fat” and “Just eat better and it will go away.” What doctors do not seem to understand is that eating well takes time and money, which many people do not have. This leaves the patient feeling helpless and in a place of no hope. Her also explaining that doctors are not exempt from this shows just how serious the situation is and how badly we need to work on fixing it. I feel that she could have given more options in her article on ways we could change this bias and not be so condemning of weight loss programs. Some people are morbidly obese and need the help of those programs to get past the mental health issues they have that are causing them to have the constant urge to eat. Magane did well in this paper and there are few places where improvement could be done, but such is writing. It is never flawless and never fully completed.