Health Issues Are Not A Moral Failing
And neither is being fat, despite what some doctors, fatphobics, and society say.
I broke my wrist when I was 12 years old. There really isn’t anything remarkable about a little kid breaking his wrist, especially a clumsy boy such as myself, but I did it in quite an unusual way — throwing a boomerang. Actually, failing to catch a boomerang is more accurate. I threw the boomerang and it came back to me, a borderline miracle. And because I wasn’t ready to catch it, I stuck my arm out and the boomerang did exactly what the Aboriginal Australians designed it to do and snapped my wrist as if it were a kangaroo’s neck. While it hurt like hell and I really, really didn’t like spending the summer in a cast, I’m pretty damn proud of actually getting it to come back to me. Not to mention the badge of honor from injuring myself in a way no other American has pulled off (as far as I know).
However, this isn’t the only reason why the injury has stuck with me for 30+ years, nor why I’m bringing it up today. The experience I had in the emergency room that day has been tattooed into my brain. I think about it all the time and it completely shaped the way I think about going to the doctor and my health today.
Where I saw the injury as an unfortunate accident that comes along with playing sports or being active, the ER doctor saw it another way and said it directly to me.
“If you weren’t fat,” she told me, “you would have been able to get out of the way of the boomerang.”