Vicki’s Story: Peds to Primary Care

My story is not about a specific incident. It’s about a general lack of coordination, understanding, and funding for resources that are unique to women’s health.

When I made the initial appointment with my primary care physician, it was because I had been a kidney donor and knew I needed to ensure I had annual physicals. I was clinically obese after years of ignoring my own health and work-life balance in the service of my job as high school leader (first assistant principal, then principal).

The primary care physician (a woman) was concerned and tore the dressing gown apart as she was trying to examine me. I felt deep shame as she was doing this. She then told me I was overweight and suggested I use Weight Watchers to lose weight.

We didn’t talk about what my life was like.

I was triggered because I had struggled with weight my whole life. I remember my pediatrician telling my mother, in front of me, when I was about 10, that I needed to lose weight. Doctors need to be straight with their patients but weight issues, particularly for women are complex.

At varied times in my life I was at a healthy weight (though I always, always thought I was fat—a friend and I joke around about pics from college and how “good”—read thin—we looked and we honestly didn’t know it). And, I am getting back there again. What has worked is having time to cook for myself and work out every day since resigning from my job.

There is a correlation between women’s health and the emotional labor they are expected to do at work and at home as primary caregivers for their families. I am satisfactorily single and child-free by choice but I still needed to attend to my parents when they have health issues. Added to that is that in most work environments, maybe all, women take on more emotional labor and housekeeping while also facing gender (and gendered racial) bias. This disproportionately impacts women and speaks to the need for systemic change across sectors in terms of how women are treated.

What would have been helpful both when I met my current PCP (who, in all other ways is incredibly skilled and thorough) and my pediatrician from all those years ago would be to do some more comprehensive intake to determine the root cause of my being overweight. And, then, perhaps referrals to practitioners like nutritionists and meditation specialists COVERED by health insurance, would have been what might have helped me throughout my life.