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Militant Low Carbing & Body Shaming - What's Your View?

My thoughts?

This is a perfect example of why I avoid Twitter like the plague

I fail to see how anyone can be criticised for not immediately responding to a Twit. I mean, even celebrity docs and diet experts have lives, don't they? Maybe they spend some of their time offline. What a radical thought.

I also don't understand why anyone would expect such high profile LCers to respond to Eddie in the first place. I stopped reading anything he writes several years ago. Someone could Twit at me for months and I wouldn't have a clue it was even going on. Nor would I care.

I found Partha Kar's comments long and indirect. He seemed to be saying that prominent LC docs and commentators should police a lunatic fringe who are launching an attack on hard working medical professionals. I am paraphrasing, but I admit that the verbosity of the Kar comments led my attention to stray. Personally, I do not think that any person (low carb or otherwise) is responsible for what other people write on Twitter (or elsewhere).

Fat shaming is unacceptable under any circumstances. Could someone please explain that to the various doctors and nurses and medical professionals who have tried it on me over the last 40 years? If LCers stoop to the same level, then they deserve the same contempt.

Edited to remove one sentence that was OTT.
 
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derry60 said:
The medical profession have to set an example
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Why? The medical profession should give good advice, it's up to us if we listen to it. Similarly what they eat is their personal choice. If it's good advice for the patient to lose weight, then that's good advice (but shouldn't be given in a judgmental way) regardless of how the doctor looks.

Many years ago I went to a GP because I had a pain at the top of my leg. He said it was a trapped nerve and asked if I had put on weight recently. I said I had put on 2 stones rapidly. He told me to diet to lose the weight and my leg would be fine. What he failed to noticed was that just 10 weeks earlier I had had a bad whiplash accident. The medical profession have never told me that whiplash can cause thyroid problems and this causes weight gain. When I mentioned it to another GP years later he said my thyroid was borderline OK and I didn't need treatment. My thyroid had been brilliant before the accident , not just borderline OK.

I don't judge the first doctor because he was more overweight than me, that's his problem not mine. I do judge him for not knowing that the car accident had caused my rapid weight gain. It wasn't until I went to nutritionists and naturopaths many years later that they told me what had happened and that this is a fairly common occurrence in bad whiplash cases.
 
zand said:
Why? The medical profession should give good advice, it's up to us if we listen to it. Similarly what they eat is their personal choice. If it's good advice for the patient to lose weight, then that's good advice (but shouldn't be given in a judgmental way) regardless of how the doctor looks.

Many years ago I went to a GP because I had a pain at the top of my leg. He said it was a trapped nerve and asked if I had put on weight recently. I said I had put on 2 stones rapidly. He told me to diet to lose the weight and my leg would be fine. What he failed to noticed was that just 10 weeks earlier I had had a bad whiplash accident. The medical profession have never told me that whiplash can cause thyroid problems and this causes weight gain. When I mentioned it to another GP years later he said my thyroid was borderline OK and I didn't need treatment. My thyroid had been brilliant before the accident , not just borderline OK.

I don't judge the first doctor because he was more overweight than me, that's his problem not mine. I do judge him for not knowing that the car accident had caused my rapid weight gain. It wasn't until I went to nutritionists and naturopaths many years later that they told me what had happened and that this is a fairly common occurrence in bad whiplash cases.
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If you had read my post properly you would have seen where I put " It is up to him what he eats" You seem to have missed the point. The doctor is in a profession where he is giving advice to his patients, well I am sorry but for me to sit watching this doctor eating pie and chips along with others is being hypocritical. It is not a plain black and white case of "Whether we take his advice or not it is up to us scenario" There are people out there who will think to themselves "Well if its ok for the doc to sit there eating unhealthy food, then it cannot be that bad" Therefore will not take his advice seriously. There are many things that the medical profession do not tell us. A virus can bring on a Heart Attack, a trauma can bring on Arthritis, and that there are over a 100 different types of Arthritis and so on. Probably you having a Thyroid problem due to a car accident is probably quite rare, so for the Doctor, I would not blame him for that. If you read up on medical things, there are many things that can relate to one condition and cause another, it is endless. You say that "You don't judge a doctor because he was more overweight than me" Nor would I in any other scenario. I judged him by giving me diet advice and telling me that I should lose weight, then an hour later seeing him eating the very kind of food that he told me not to. Which I never did in the first place.
 
derry60 said:
here are people out there who will think to themselves "Well if its ok for the doc to sit there eating unhealthy food, then it cannot be that bad" Therefore will not take his advice seriously.
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Again that is their choice.

derry60 said:
You say that "You don't judge a doctor because he was more overweight than me" Nor would I in any other scenario. I judged him by giving me diet advice and telling me that I should lose weight, then an hour later seeing him eating the very kind of food that he told me not to. Which I never did in the first place.
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And that is where I think the problem really lies. If a doctor is overweight because he eats junk food then he might wrongly assume that other overweight people eat it too. It's all about judging others and none of us, especially doctors should be judging others.
 
@tim2000s I am wondering what your motive was in posting this? This forum is a nice place to be now, why bring up old hurts? I posted my reply not having read the twitter feed, but knowing exactly who you were talking about. Are you tarring all of us low carbers with the same 'militant brush'?

I have read what Zoe Harcombe said (thanks @Indy51 ) and there's nothing wrong with that.

In answer to your question
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tim2000s said:
My question to the forum - as a centre of Low Carb excellence, do you agree with Partha, or do you think that the named doctors were right to make no comment whatsoever on being associated with body shaming and diet?
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Those doctors don't have to reply to twitter feeds if they don't wish to do so, I don't know why you think they should. They haven't agreed with the poster, Zoe's reply was good, the others have so far ignored the individual concerned. I think perhaps you would have been better ignoring him too. People like that relish the attention.
 
bulkbiker said:
I notice that @tim2000s hasn't linked to the tweet concerned but has given us his and Partha Kar's opinion.

You all know my disdain for misrepresentation so here is a link to the original tweet that started the whole thing off.

https://twitter.com/lowcarbdiabetic/status/1009747671953956864
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Thanks for that. The sheer nastiness of the tweet has put me off Twitter!
Body shaming is pointless since the owners of imperfect bodies already feel plenty of their own shame.
I work in the fitness industry and I am not skinny though I do practice what I advise my clients in good faith that I believe in. I would expect a doctor, nurse or dietician to do the same and would respect them less if they didn't but can't expect them to share my opinions on what a healthy diet is!
I am also middle class but do not think that the fact I can shop at Waitrose should stop me from having an opinion that the diet eaten by many of the population is poor and that our 'cheap' food is in fact very expensive in the long run. This isn't about the sneering middle classes judging the other person's trolley because the person buying processed food is being nudged down that path by many factors but I do think the 'nanny state' (actually not nanny enough im my view) has got some responsibility in allowing an environment where it is possible to eat so badly.
 
Talking generally and not specifically there is a danger for all groups to reinforce their own views to the exception of all other inputs.

Eventually this can develop and becomes a cult, I don't like cults and I see the signs amongst LCHF.

Choose your gurus wisely they are all human, make mistakes and at the end of the day get a 6x2 plot if their lucky.

We and I, criticize Ancel Keys but he did live to be 100years old! Perhaps he didn't live up to his published dietary ideas? :)

Volek seems to be a poster boy for a resistant starch company.

Many dieticians sing from the hymn sheet of big food and pharma.

I wouldn't put my picture on the internet like those ample proportioned ladies. The dieticians would say, "poor soul his low carb diet is making him malnourished"

There is quite a lot of quite sharp and dare I say it, British type humour, currently out there. If it is cruel or unwarranted one may like it or lump it as my old mother used to say.

Some are polemical and sometimes it does bring about change but most of us just want a peaceful healthy life.
D.
 
My father used to tell me don't do as I do do as I say. For many professionals a diet of pie and chips may not have a serious impact on their health apart from a bit of gained weight. But they are bound to give what they believe is the best advice to their patients regarding the patient's health and in particular paying attention to the patients condition and vulnerabilities. We may as a group disagree with that advise but that is beside the point.

Had to edit as pressed the post button by mistake.
 
Pie and chips might actually be a good choice for someone able to cope with the carbs - whilst I was working at Lyons there was a case of a man trying to commit suicide by eating one of our meat pies for every meal (seriously, I am not kidding) but he escaped being committed on the request of his sister because an expert witness declared that the pies contained healthy amounts of all necessary foods and that although he said he was trying to commit suicide his actions were not commensurate with any intention of doing so.
As for body shaming - opinion is a powerful set of blinkers to wear - I was told that I was overweight when I was very muscular and had a 24 inch waist - so it became a self fulfilling treatment, as I became fatter with every diet I was put on.
 
JohnEGreen said:
My father used to tell me don't do as I do do as I say. For many professionals a diet of pie and chips may not have a serious impact on their health apart from a bit of gained weight. But they are bound to give what they believe is the best advice to their patients regarding the patient's health and in particular paying attention to the patients condition and vulnerabilities. We may as a group disagree with that advise but that is beside the point.

Had to edit as pressed the post button by mistake.
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Yes agree in an ideal world, but like I said previously. For many, the doctor's advice may quite often fall on deaf ears with his patients if he is seen to be doing the exact opposite that he has adviced his patients to do. We also have to get into the patients mind, and many would be of the attitude..If a doctor can eat pie and chips so can I
 
Resurgam said:
I was told that I was overweight when I was very muscular and had a 24 inch waist - so it became a self fulfilling treatment, as I became fatter with every diet I was put on.
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Yet they say that very low cal diets don't make our metabolisms slower. I was like you, told I was fat and now really am.
 
derry60 said:
Yes agree in an ideal world, but like I said previously. For many, the doctor's advice may quite often fall on deaf ears with his patients if he is seen to be doing the exact opposite that he has adviced his patients to do. We also have to get into the patients mind, and many would be of the attitude..If a doctor can eat pie and chips so can I
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Yes I see where you are coming from. I suppose it depends on how we view our doctors, as human just like us and as equals to us, or as special and better than us. The older generation particularly seem to think that doctors are sacred.
 
I have been criticised for many reasons, being fat is one of them, but that is not the only reason. Try, being from the 'wrong' neighbourhood, 'wrong' school, 'wrong' class, 'wrong' faith, 'wrong' income bracket, for staying at home to rear children. I won't go on, even though people have tried to make me feel inferior because they don't agree with my choices or circumstances beyond my control. The shame lies with the people doing the crticising. To validate their criticism by responding only feeds their arrogance. Silence is the most dignified response. I won't accept shame offered by another, and applaud those who neither read or respond to bigotted, bullying Twitter feed.
 
NicoleC1971 said:
The sheer nastiness of the tweet has put me off Twitter!
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Can I just put in a small word for Twitter, which has been badly maligned on this thread. I use it for all sorts of nice, interesting things and follow and am followed by people with similar interests. (Nothing to do with health.) It's a bit like saying that pencils are horrid and should be avoided, just because you can write some very nasty and hurtful things with them.
Don't be put off, look for nice things that interest you, there are all sorts of lovely surprises and useful discoveries.
Sally
 
derry60 said:
Yes agree in an ideal world, but like I said previously. For many, the doctor's advice may quite often fall on deaf ears with his patients if he is seen to be doing the exact opposite that he has adviced his patients to do. We also have to get into the patients mind, and many would be of the attitude..If a doctor can eat pie and chips so can I
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My nurse can drink milk, one of her patients cant, as they are lactose intolerant. Would the nurse be hypocritical to have some milk while talking to my friend?

How do we know if the doctor eats pie and chips every so often? Thats the same mentality as people who give dirty looks and make comments at overweight people enjoying a meal out, with a desert or without a desert. And how do we know why someone is overweight, their physical and mental and emotional battles on a daily basis?

Is winning a battle worth nothing if we dont see a war being won?

Too much judging going on in the world, too much hypocrisy, too much telling others to be more than human, while being less than human themselves. Its not just fat shaming, its mental health issues, its addiction issues, its everything. We have the means to support each other and up build each other globally by using social media (including forums) all we concentrate on Us and Them shaming for all sorts of reasons.

Its sad.
 
bulkbiker said:
I notice that @tim2000s hasn't linked to the tweet concerned but has given us his and Partha Kar's opinion.

You all know my disdain for misrepresentation so here is a link to the original tweet that started the whole thing off.

https://twitter.com/lowcarbdiabetic/status/1009747671953956864
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Thank your posting this link in order to add some balance.

When first diagnosed, I went on a 2 day course run by a specialist diabetic nurse and a dietician.
Both were grossly overweight.
I neither castigated them nor listened to their advice but did some research and changed my habits.

It is unfortunate that our health professionals have given such wrong advice to us about our diets, for so,long.
More worrying though is that despite massive and growing evidence, our health institution still repeats the same mantras.
Is it changing, I hope so.
 
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