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I am a nurse working in a hospital. I love diversity and believe everyone has the right to good self-esteem. I wish that for everyone. But I feel like the person forgotten in the argument of whether weight negatively impacts a person's health outcome is the healthcare worker that a heavy person will expect to help them move when they need help: the nurses lifting, turning and helping them to the bathroom; the paramedics extracting them from where they have fallen or had a wreck or become unconscious, etc... I know we are negatively affected by that other person's obesity in a big way. As time goes on I find myself more begrudging of that person's choice to maintain a body that they are at times unable to lift, and then look at me to do what they can't. Overweight hurts: joints, backs, my hands from lifting. I live that in my job.

posted 4 years, 9 months ago
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