General Discussion

She was chunky even as a little kid. She ate the same thing as we did, in similar portions, with similar activity. She just always had that extra layer.

With her first baby she weighed less at birth than she did when she got pregnant - including the boy. By the time the 2nd one came she was 20 lb overweight. From that point on she gained about 5 -10 lb a year until she topped out at 270 at 5'1" around age 50. She was fairly active. She earned a living on her feet all day, and we could walk MILES. She kept up. Plus there was the farm. My sister was never a sitter.

A few trips to the doc for various things, she faced the bias. They didn't take her seriously. They discounted everything to fat. The assumption was she was lazy, stupid and lying about her eating. As her knees deteriorated she fought harder in the kitchen to keep her weight from getting any higher. She'd been on 400 calories a day for 5 months when she had her heart attack. She'd managed to take off a mere 15 pounds.

The cardiologist in the hospital that put the stents in told her she should have come in when chest pain first started years before.... well she did. Nobody listened.

Fast forward another 8 years. She was managing to maintain but was practically starving herself. She kept complaining about stomach pain but discounted it to hunger, which she endured because "fatties need extra willpower" (her quote). She could just cry with "hunger pain". We begged her to see the doctor. She wouldn't. "What's the use?".

She fainted at church and didn't come to until she was in the ER for several hours. Turned out she had cancer. Too far advanced to do much of anything to save her. She died less than a year after the diagnosis.

The issue of weight and medical attention is VERY personal to me. What we are doing now DOESN'T work. If skipping the scale helps even one person be willing to go to a doctor and ask for help, then it will be worth it. Let someone out there not lose a sibling or parent or child because of embarrassment, shame, and demoralization.