There's a lot of talk in the news about the connection of health to weight. "Medical professionals" are being encouraged in the mass media to have a talk with their patients about their weight (regardless of why the patient came in to see them). Many massage therapists feel strongly that we should be talking to our clients about weight.
I don't. I won't.
There are a lot of reasons. One reason is that I don't have anything new or useful to say. A bigger reason is that it can be subtly very hurtful to for a "professional" to bring up your weight out of the blue, when you didn't go to see them for that.
I know. It happened to me recently.
I went to see someone about some pain I was experiencing. This professional has a specific area of expertise that I knew would be helpful. In the middle of the treatment, the professional started telling me all about their recent efforts to lose weight and wondered if I'd heard about their particular diet and did I think it might work for me and it might be helpful for some other medical conditions I have (that this professional knows very little about).
I felt trapped. I needed the treatment. I didn't want to get into an argument. I didn't want to have this discussion at all. I have extended discussions with my primary doctor about every aspect of my health. This conversation wasn't going to add to that.
But I'm sure the professional felt they had done their part to "help" me think about my weight (I'm a middle-aged woman, what are the odds that I am completely unaware of my weight?). I was mostly annoyed.
And I'm not going to do that to you.
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