Today I went for a routine medical for my new job (which I will be starting on Thurdsay). For the first time in my life, I had an ECG. It wasn’t like on the TV: there were no sticky electrodes, instead there were little metal cups attached with suction[1]. Afterwards I looked rather as though my left breast had been fondled by an octopus.
Anyway, apart from a touch of heat stroke, which I picked up on the journey[2], I would appear to be in peak physical fitness. In fact, things were so good that the Dr didn’t believe me when I rather shamefacedly admitted to not doing any exercise. In my life. Ever. There’s one in the eye for everyone who has ever looked at my somewhat squishy physique and made Assumptions.
I have noticed a slightly odd thing to do with being overweight and the attitude of Drs towards squishiness. A few years ago, I went to a Dr I do not normally see for some minor issue and, rather than sit in the chair waiting for the lecture on diet and exercise that seems to generally be the lot of those built more like comfy sofas than whippets as soon as their expansive bums touch the faded green leather, I decided to short-cut the whole thing and mumbled something about knowing there was a problem and doing my best to tackle it. The Dr in question looked at me oddly and said “you don’t look like you have a weight problem!”. I confess, I was a little astonished, because I am patently no slender willow. We talked about it a bit and, in the course of the discussion, I discovered that the Dr in question was Swedish and rather felt her British colleagues had become a little obsessed with applying pressure on their patients to diet. She felt it wasn’t the solution to the obesity epidemic and may actually be making it worse. Since then I have visited a number of non-British Drs and not one of them has delivered the expected lecture. Certainly not the one I visited today who was quite clearly of the opinion that, if there is nothing wrong, why fix it?
I wouldn’t go so far as to say there isn’t a problem we should be trying to tackle here, but I am increasingly coming to the opinion that the received wisdom that weight loss is best achieved through diet and exercise is rather wide of the mark. After all, how many people do you know who have lost weight using the traditional methods, got all the way to their target weight and then kept it off? Perhaps it is time for a rethink.
1. is that normal outside of TV land, or is Japan (or possibly even just my surgery) a bit special?
2. Seriously. What kind of idiot gives themselves heatstroke going to the Dr?!
