Obese woman files complaint over doctor’s weight loss advice
Today’s Stupid Person of the Day hasn’t died yet, but she’s well on her way.
The woman, who was not named in news reports, filed a complaint with the New Hampshire Attorney General when her doctor, Dr. Terry Bennett of Rochester, urged her to lose weight.
“It’s an epidemic in the United States, and it’s croaking us,” Bennett said.
Bennett said that it’s a lecture he gives to many of his overweight patients.
“It’s your weight, … and there’s dozens of programs,” Bennett said. “You don’t have to come in here. You can join Jenny Craig. You can go see Weight Watchers.”
Bennett said he tells obese patients that their weight is bad for their health and their love lives. But the lecture drove one patient to write a letter to the Board of Medicine, which has passed on the complaint to the Attorney General’s Office.
“Did I sleep with somebody? Did I give somebody drugs? Was I careless? No. End of story,” Bennett said. “That should have been the end of it.” — NewsNet5.com
Bennett apologized on local TV for offending the woman. Which perhaps puts him in the stupid category, too.
Here’s what I say about Dr. Bennett and the First Amendment:
http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2005/10/youre-so-obese-only-black-men-will.html
Let’s get a grip, here folks. Dr. Terry Bennett’s comments, in lilly-white New Hampshire, are not the same as a doctor telling a skinny black woman, “you’re so skinny only white boys will like you,” and if you can’t see that, or comprehend why it’s different in a context like this, you may be cursed with another physical ailment beyond the Good Doctor’s bailiwick: Myopia.
Having dated leggy blondes to short brunettes and women of many body compositions between 4′10″ to 6′2″ and in between, I appreciate all sorts of women. But apparently some white professionals in the “Live Free or Die” state don’t appreciate black men appreciating white women in that way because he used it as a scare tactic. Well that’s pretty scary to me, folks, so I’m gonna file a complaint with the Seacoast Branch of the NAACP later today. Peace.
PS: His speech is not entirely protected by the First Amendment, as mine was and is in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. He relinquished a degree of his First Amendment Rights by agreeing to be subject to a regulatory board — and he may even be governed by commercial, rather than general, Free Speech doctrines. I, on the other hand, was exercising a Fundamental right as a free negro (or caucasian) citizen to seek redress for a man who faced three (3) drawn guns, arrest and a body cavity search from undercover police who rousted him and eventually charged him with “loitering,” which he beat. See my 16 Oct. blawg, “Open Complaint to NAACP Legal Defense Fund,” which still has not been answered substantively.
-c
Comment by christopher king — October 27, 2005 @ 5:06 pm