Does it matter if GPs are overweight? Pulse's surreal blog 'Through the K hole' asks the public...
Society has made and continues to make very poor decisions about its health. And now, with palsied hands, it is wheeling itself towards the cliff edge of preventable disease.
Doctors, carefully selected from the community, trained in its ways and corrupted by its empty promises have undoubtedly adopted its behaviours. Is it any wonder then that the profession's arteries are beginning to narrow? Should we be surprised when an unhealthy doctor appears hypocritical when suggesting that patients should change their ways?
Reaction was sought from local people.
A gourmand from Clapton-on-Sea said: 'I went to see my own GP the other week to ask for some orlistat. I deliberately chose the fattest GP that I could find, hoping for a sympathetic response. But all he did was shout TAKE MORE EXERCISE and EAT LESS CHOCOLATE and then fell into a rather churlish double-chinned silence. When I suggested that there was more than a little irony about what he was saying he threatened to kill me with an enormous vanilla slice. I've since found out that he forgot his lunch that day and was having some kind of mini-breakdown.'
An 8-month-old, ruminating on the sorry state of her doctor's health, said: 'I was taken to see the GP because mummy was concerned about my snuffles. When I got there I thought I was seeing things... honest to God I thought someone had spiked my milk. My GP was telling me to avoid sweet things because I'm teething but this guy looked like he got through a wheelbarrow of sweet things every morning before breakfast. I mean I've engaged in some pretty intense Schadenfreude in the past, but this was different. I felt physically repulsed by him and I went back to sullenly sucking on my fingers.'
A GP without a heart said: 'Thank God for the three S's - shame, secrecy and stigma - the handmaidens of quiet self-loathing. They have conveniently protected me from patients whingeing about their waistlines or their drink and drug problems and have kept them inside the soul-destroying confines of darkened bedrooms everywhere. I feel heartened that up-and-coming GPs have a similar negative attitude toward health problems that have the faintest whiff of personal culpability about them.'
A loner, who speaks fluent Klingon and who has been quietly observing the Earth for a number of years, said: 'As far as I can tell, doctors are genetically identical to other human beings. I know this for a fact because I've secretly probed a few of them. And isn't it a worry that some of them have forgetten this? Some of them actually believe the rhetoric and the illusory pedestal that society has placed them on. Who cares if your doctor drinks a bit too much at the weekend, or eats one too many mince pies over Christmas? They're people too and I would much rather have a fat, humane doctor than an unrealistic, judgemental one. My latest data analysis does suggest however that Wagner from the X-Factor isn't entirely human... just to give you the heads up on that one.'
A doctor cannot behave beyond reproach. We need to abandon the myth that doctors are somehow different and immune to societal ills before we abandon ourselves and reach for yet another cream slice.
Written in response to: Why are there so many overweight GPs? Dr Kevin Hinkley is a GP in Aberdeen.
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