'Obese patients being weight-shamed by doctors and nurses' - ACE study is routinely ignored. Why?



To the Editor,

I read the article 'Obese patients being weight-shamed by doctors and nurses' by Dennis Campbell, Health Correspondent,  writing in The Guardian, Wednesday 10th August 2022 with some degree of sadness.

Obese patients ‘being weight-shamed by doctors and nurses’




The ACE Study, carried out by Vincent Felletti and colleagues at Kaiser Permanente, some years ago studied the health outcomes of more than 50,000 people, and found a very strong correlation between health issues such as Obesity, Addiction, Heart problems and early Adverse Childhood Experiences. Further research has show the linkage is beyond mere correlation. Early adverse experiences - bullying, sexual abuse, neglect, poverty etc can have profound long term health impacts, that emerge and present many, many years later.

http://erikwblack.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/104348885/AllFilesIPLH2.2016.pdf

It is obvious that such early experience of trauma and chronic stress is not the child's fault. How can it then be the adult's fault as those illnesses present?

I have on three occasions spoken as a caller on LBC about the ACE study, and asked why the insights of this evidence base is routinely ignored. On all three occasions I was rebuffed by the presenters. They dismissed the information. They tended to discuss food, sugar and self control. They rejected the information I was presenting.

Blaming the vulnerable is a common form of discrimination.  

Lack of knowledge is part of this, as is wilful ignorance.

How is it possible that GPs and Nurses tasked with care of people with health issues are unaware of the ACE Study? I assume it is for similar reasons most people are unaware of the ACE study findings. Is it that no one wants to admit that early childhood trauma and chronic stress exists to the degree it does, and that form many sufferers, this has health outcome impacts that ruin people's lives? Is it that children ought to be seen and not heard is still a thread that runs through our culture?

Whatever it is way, that lack of knowledge and sensitivity translates into cruelty.

We must and can do much, much better. 


Kindest Regards

Corneilius Crowley

London


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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