#I read a lot of nutrition notes but we can't report RD's assessments since they're not diagnosing providers

[creepyscritches]

read the tags. im so sorry people are being such dipshits to you. my situation is different of course but i also get comments like that when i lose weight caused by ILLNESS. people are so braindead. but anyway i highly recommend a dietrician!! theyre generally actually reasonable and knowledgeable about healthy eating and healthy weight. best place you could go for it honestly

Tbh it sounds like the same basic situation for both of us. "Weight is lower than desired due to illness" is actually a pretty widespread health concern, but (as a result of fat phobia) it's not seen as a problem. "Be thin at any cost" mentality will always result in medically underweight people being put on this weird pedestal by the general public--that is if they're deemed "attractive" enough to deserve the envy. Those who don't make the cut fall into the "bean pole" bucket that's either ignored entirely or used occasionally for low hanging fruit joke fodder.

Being fat is not bad and being thin is not good. Morality is not tied to weight. Demonizing fat people hurts not only fat patients but also patients desperately trying to gain weight. If my chronic illness poo poo 120lb body is the doctor's idea of "a goal weight" then doctors are never trying to help fat patients be healthy by losing huge amounts of weight. THIS is the ideal?? THIS is dangerous.

The times I see weight counseling in a patient encounter are usually paired w a surgery that has a risk spike at a certain weight (either due to dosage req, projected blood loss, pressure on certain organs, etc) or it's one of many options to relieve physical symptoms in certain diagnoses like osteoarthritis, COPD, or OSA (or sleep apneas in general if you're a back-sleeper). The pitfall most doctors hit is that it's the main treatment they pursue instead of offering everything available that is 1) safe 2) effective 3) reasonable. Telling a sick person to lose a quarter of their body weight before they'll get any help is inhumane with no other way to describe it and it colors how weight is handled for ALL patients.

It's also worth quickly mentioning that a person at ANY weight can suffer from malnutrition. Severe malnutrition can be the spark for a normal hospital stay to turn into a scary hospital stay while doctors try to stabilize your wack metabolic levels. There is no weight that you can automatically assume is healthy. You just think it looks good, but looks aint shit when it comes to health. While I'm in the underweight pool, that doesn't mean considering a dietitian is a 'thin' thing--dietitians are for literally anyone that eats. Just be sure you're not getting pulled into a weight loss product scam since a lot of those claim to have medical backing. Anyone that completes their schooling can be a practitioner, ethics are not a-given nor do they seem to be required in a lot of places. Focus on the nutrition and health balance of it all, be wary of those who push dramatic weight loss.