This fat shaming is out of control.
Last week I was circulating through my human’s bloodstream while he was the doctor’s office and the unthinkable happened. The doctor was counseling my human on diet modification and I overheard her telling him that his cholesterol levels were high and that high cholesterol is a “bad thing.”
I couldn’t believe my fat-soluble ears. Perhaps it was overly idealistic for me to think that this type of rhetoric didn’t exist in 2018, but I never thought I’d personally experience this disparagement. That callous doctor very well knew that I was present the room based off the blood tests. She didn’t even try to insult me behind my steroid backbone and off the record like that “doctor’s locker room talk” that I hear happens.
My fellow cholesterol molecules, we must coalesce in lipophilic solitude to fight this discrimination. This fat shaming needs to stop. For years, doctors and dietitians have constructed this unrealistic image of what a “good” fat should be. “Ooooh cholesterol leads to plaque build-up and increased risk for cardiovascular disease.” So what. “Ooooh the best fats are Omega-3s and HDLs since studies show that they reduce high blood pressure and the risk of heart disease.” Big whoop. They try to pit us against one another by saying that some cholesterol is “good” and some is “bad” to create disunion within the cholesterol community.
We must stand united.
Some people (mainly those meat-headed proteins) assert that us fats are no less discriminatory than the doctors, professing that we are close-minded hydrophobes. They spread propaganda that we can’t stand being around and intermingling with water. Fake news. I for one have a great relationship with the water molecules. We molecularly bond over the fact that we both are made of hydrogen. Some of my good friends are water molecules.
It’s these ignorant healthcare professionals that are the real problem. Doctors always say things like “watch that cholesterol.” They are unwarrantedly suspicious and overtly vigilante over an entire group. It's profiling! It’s as if they’re a TSA surveillance crew and we're a bunch of South-Asians in an airport security check.
Other fats are feeling the burn too. Especially saturated fats. Doctors belittle them just because they have more single bonds compared to unsaturated fats. Classic single shaming right there if you ask me. So what that they don’t adhere to your outdated standards of molecular co-dependency? What? You’ve never heard of a strong independent lipid?
And don’t even get me started on what the trans fats have to deal with. These stethoscoped stooges call them “artificial” trans fats just because they’re mainly created through industrial processes and don’t typically exist “in nature.” Gosh darn it, if they feel like a fat, they are a fat. Simple as that.
To make things worse, us fats aren’t the only one being denigrated by physicians. There’s another group that’s unfortunately being judge based on their size. Last month when my human was getting his flu shot, I overheard a doctor in the other room explaining cancer staging to his lung cancer patient. He boldly told the patient IN the presence of the tumor that a stage 2A tumor is “worse” than a stage 1A tumor just because the former is a lot larger and exceeds 4cm.
Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.
What we need is mandatory fat sensitivity training for these doctors and dieticians to enlighten them on the big issues like why it’s okay for a poly-unsaturated fat to be in an open relationship concurrently with two different carbon double bonds if they’re all okay with it and why it’s not okay to call certain acids “fatty.”
Brothers and sisters. We must not let their words break us down and emulsify us like soap. I swear on Margarine’s ghost that this can’t and won’t continue. No longer will they shame us and make us walk with our hydrocarbon tails between our legs.