Why Did My Doctor Never Say Anything?

I've been to several different doctors over the years who have weighed me and not one said anything to me or my mother (who went to all my physicals with me until I was 18) about how awful my weight was!

Even when I was pushing 130, the doctor said that my weight was "normal for my height", which no, it definitely wasn't. A few times my mother even asked if it was too high and the doctor would say that it wasn't a problem.

Now that I'm ~10 pounds down, I see how unhealthy and chunk I looked before. Maybe if my doctors had said something, it would have kept me out of chubster denial and motivated me to start losing before now :|.

When a doctor mentions something about your weight, do you find it motivating or discouraging?

How tall are you?

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Nevermind, I can see you are 5'0". Even though you might have been slightly overweight at 130, I don't blame the doctor for not telling you to lose weight. It's a delicate subject for teenage girls. =/ Plus you weren't dangerously overweight. You were still growing. It's great that you want to get healthier now, but I can imagine it being hard to judge a situation where advice could be beneficial OR detrimental.

PS. I know that I would have appreciated my doctor saying something to my parents as a kid. At my highest I believe I had a BMI of about 32.

5'. when I finally checked, my BMI was 25, so definitely overweight.

And from what I remember, I was in the mid-late 120's when i was 4'10-4'11.

You should not be asking strangers this question. This is something that you need to discuss with your doctor. 130 lbs is not heavy! It depends, of course, how tall you are. There are weight charts on the internet to see where you are. You can also look at Body Mass Index (BMI). That will tell you if you are overweight or not, too.

I am 5'3" and I weighed 135 most of my life without ever being chunky or overweight. I exercise and muscles weigh a lot more than fat. Even now, I am at 160 and I do not look very fat because I still work out a fair amount. I'm 57 now, so it's expected to have some weight gain.

Take good care of yourself. Do not judge yourself by society's standards, but do the smart thing and talk to your doctor and look at your BMI.

a BMI of 25 is perfect, actually.

i thought perfect was between 10-24?

ETA: Typo! I mean 20-24. I don't think 10 is healthy in any way shape or form!

 

 

I have never had a doctor mention weight to me unless I mentioned it to her first... And I have weighed as much as 241 pounds (5'6")! Definitely more than you. It might be because you were close to your healthy weight and were not experiencing any other factors that showed you might be at risk. I'm assuming that if I had high blood pressure or high cholesterol or something my doctor would have recommended weight loss at that point.

Also, it is not uncommon while you are young and growing to go through cycles of gain then grow then gain then grow. While you were younger your doctor might have assumed you were approaching a "grow" cycle and would come out of it.

Plus, as feanor said, with young girls especially I don't blame doctors AT ALL for not mentioning weight unless it is a health risk. You never know when a single comment might be what it takes to push someone into Eating-Disorder type thinking. Definitely not worth the 10 pounds you were overweight.

Congrats on getting motivated to seek that truly healthy weight, though!

Original Post by shakti411:

You should not be asking strangers this question. This is something that you need to discuss with your doctor. 130 lbs is not heavy! It depends, of course, how tall you are. There are weight charts on the internet to see where you are. You can also look at Body Mass Index (BMI). That will tell you if you are overweight or not, too.

I am 5'3" and I weighed 135 most of my life without ever being chunky or overweight. I exercise and muscles weigh a lot more than fat. Even now, I am at 160 and I do not look very fat because I still work out a fair amount. I'm 57 now, so it's expected to have some weight gain.

Take good care of yourself. Do not judge yourself by society's standards, but do the smart thing and talk to your doctor and look at your BMI.

I don't really have a doctor right now since I'm away at school. Actually, I started thinking about this because I have an appointment coming up with a new doctor and I'm freaking out about getting weighed. In the back of my mind there was a little voice saying "If they never said anything about your weight before, why start now?" And started wondering why they never said anything.

I slid up to 138 a few months ago after living in an apartment without a kitchen for half a year and turning 21 (hello 1000 calorie drinks 5 days a week!) and now that I'm back down to 130ish (actually 126 as of today!) I can tell that it's definitely still too big for me.

Since the doctor I'm going to see is seeing me because of PCOS I know they're going to say something and now I can't decide if I want them to or not.

 

Ideal BMI should be no lower than 19 (you might see 18.5 some places). But personally I would never want to get near the LOW end of my ideal BMI. That doesn't leave you any reserve. I believe you are correct about 24 being at the top end of what they call "ideal". But again, that doesn't factor in muscle/fat ratio. Muscle weighs a lot more than fat and just picture a body builder who weighs close to 200 but has very little fat on them. They would be classified as overweight or obese if they used BMI only.

My OB/GYN had no problems telling me I was overweight and it really upset me.  I immediately went on some horrible diet pills, had some horrible heart palipatations, ended up on anti-depressents and gained 10 more pounds!!!  It really upset me bad.

 

That was 1 1/2 years ago.  I'm glad she did it, even though I gained weight before I started losing.  I cannot wait until my next OB appointment in October.  I want to show her how great I look!!!

the doctor should be concerned about health risks associated with obesity.  Someone within the healthy BMI is not at weight-related risk.  Maybe it "looks fat" to you but the doctor isn't concerned with cosmetics. 

The only time a doctor has commented on my weight was when I was pregnant and gaining too much-the office staff didn't support him either. 

In Feb. I had a physical and the scale said 184, I was genuinely shocked.  I thought I was in the 170's.  It was my personal realization that made me decide I needed to do something. . . before summer!

I thought 25 was not a healthy BMI. And since I was a child/teen with around that BMI, I'm surprised that they never even mentioned it to my mom. Especially since she asked. When you're short like me, every pound counts more. It wasn't just about cosmetics.

Evidently it is a health risk since it's a symptom of PCOS which I just found out that I have.

I'm at a BMI of 26, and when I asked my doctor about my weight she said she wasn't concerned because I led an active lifestyle.  A lot depends on the doctor and on the patient.  I still want to get down to what I consider an acceptable size, but weight is just one risk factor and she was factoring other things like blood tests that I had done recently.

I completely agree that no one told you because of your young age and how fragile we young girls can be. That said, when I was in middle school, probably eighth grade, a new male nurse at my Dr.'s was supposed to weigh me and take my temperature and all that nonsense. I got on the scale, and when he moved it over the 100 pound mark, he said:

"Uh oh, this is when you get to fat-girl weight."

Mind you,  I was 13-ish, 5' 5"-ish, and still growing.

I don't think I would've cried more on that trip to the doctor's if my doctor told me I had, I dunno, lung cancer or something. Weight is a very sensitive subject.

Congrats on your loss, though! 

25 is not an especially unhealthy BMI for a growing girl, assuming that she is active and has some muscle on her.

Typically a doctor will not intervene unless she is at some health risk from her weight. The risk of triggering the reverse problem is just too great. It is also common for teens to experience a "weight spurt" right before a growth spurt, which is why it's doubly important that they don't start restricting calories when that happens - they could permanently affect their maximal height if they undereat while growing.

There is no real evidence of increased health risk for people with BMIs as high as 27. The mortality of those who are "slightly overweight" (25-27) is actually LOWER than that of "normal" (20-24 BMI) people. This is probably due in part to people smoking "to keep their weight down", meaning they have a lower BMI but are much much more unhealthy.

p.s. if anyone reading this smokes, please, please consider quitting. I've been learning in hospitals for the last few months and the ravages of long-term smoking are just.... horrendous.

My GI doctor commented on my weight. She poked me in the tummy and told me that she'd like to see me lose some of it. It was horrible to hear. When I brought it up to my regular doctor, she said I was perfectly healthy. It just depends on the doctor and the circuimstance.

Even if you are only five feet tall, 130 pounds is a perfectly normal weight and hardly something that the doctor would feel bound to mention - their job is to encourage you to have a HEALTHY bodyimage and lifestyle, not to foster eating disorders by telling perfectly normal teenagers that they need to go on a diet... yes, a bmi of 25 is on the very high end, but it's still perfectly normal.

LOL my doctor didn't tell me I was fat until I was nearing the 180 pound mark... of course, I was on steroids so it was kind of a delicate matter. :-)

Actually, what really pissed me off was that when I started to lose weight my doctor asked me if I was anorexic.

You'd have to be like 4'6" to be significantly overweight at 130.

Unless you're REALLY short, your doctor was right not to mention the nonexistent "problem".

I tried to get some feel of my healthy weight and my Dr. was so scared  he just won't say anything unless you ask him specifically "What's my healthy bmi?"

 

I started out saying is my weight ok but he would just dismiss it. I kept asking do I need to lose weight?  until I got so really direct "what's my healthy weight range?" FINALLY  I could get answer.

Just find out your healthy weight range and stay in that area. from what I was skimming above in replies someone posted above is  going a little overboard wanting to lose TOO much weight.

Original Post by udokier:

You'd have to be like 4'6" to be significantly overweight at 130.

Unless you're REALLY short, your doctor was right not to mention the nonexistent "problem".

that's a little unfair.

at 130 i was classified as overweight which IS a potential problem. and i was getting heavier every year and not growing all that much in height.

i just feel like maybe if my doctor had said something about this slippery slope, even if it wasn't to me but to my mom to avoid hurting my feelings, then i wouldn't be trying so hard now to lose the weight.

maybe 130 wasn't a dangerous weight on its own, but it would have been way too easy to just keep gaining and gaining while lying to myself saying that i was still healthy.