5. Confront stigma and biases against obese persons

6. Understand patients' experience with weight loss diets

7. Name cultural components that contribute to obesity

8. Identify sources of physician frustration with eating disordered patients

9. Know effects and efficacy of surgical approach to obesity

Unit 5 Section 2 Exercise 4 Obesity

Vignette

Now he could barely walk to his pick-up truck. He hadn’t been on an airplane since 1983, and it had been two years since he had been to the second floor of his house. Because he couldn’t negotiate the stairs…Unable to lie down he had sleep in a recliner ever since. Even so, he could doze only in snatches, because of sleep apnea….he was perpetually exhausted…Good hygiene, he said, was nearly impossible. He could no longer stand up to urinate, and after moving his bowels he often had to shower to get clean. Skin folds would become chafed and red, and sometimes developed boils and infection.

From “The man who couldn’t stop eating” in Atul Gawande, Complications (Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt 2002)

The purpose of this section is to understand the culture of obesity, experiences and approaches from the patient's perspective.