Idle musings: would you take advice from an obese nutritionist or a depressed therapist?

[GeriKellmansUpdo]

Just idly thinking about this because on my social media feed there are:
Nutritionists who advise on weight loss and diabetes control but are obese themselves
Therapists who are constantly saying how depressed they are
Financial advisors who are saying how bad they are with money

Does this make them more relatable to ordinary Joes or Janes? Personally, I think I wouldn't. Though on the other hand, I know a lot of doctors who smoke.

I once went to a fitness class organised by work as part of a wellness week where people started copying a girl there who had what would be seen as the perfect figure. The person giving the class was much curvier but fantastic, fit and it really irritated me as everyone knows the girl plays a hundred types of sports, eats cleanly and is a member of the territorial army- they were not going to turn into her from one class that work had organised!!

Maybe not specific weight loss advice but if I need to see a medical professional for something not directly related to my weight I quite like it if they're a bit overweight as I know they won't immediately tell me that whatever is wrong with me would be cured if I were thinner.

Same as when I was a (not as chubby as I thought I was when I look back at photos) teenager I much preferred PE at school the weeks that we had the slightly fat PE teacher to the weeks we had the toned and slim PE teacher. I always felt the slim one was judging me!

How thick do you have to be to ignore the advice of a trained professional because of their weight? Their professional self is separate to their personal self and some of you can't see the difference. I don't suppose that overweight nurse gives a shit whether you listen or not, your loss.

Are you all so judgemental about overweight male medical staff I wonder?

If I can't SEE someone's issues, then they wouldn't affect my opinion of them. But a visibly obese nutritionist? Nah, not going to spend my money with them no matter how good the advice seems to be.

A nutritionist that WAS obese but no longer is? Absolutely.

If I found out they never suffered weight or diet issues? Probably wouldn't feel they could be as supportive as I would need them to be.

Well my GP sent me to their morbidly obese community dietician/nutritionist (can't remember which was her job title) instead of giving me any actual treatment. It was terrible.

She kept thrusting leaflets at me with extremely basic info in them that I already knew. After playing along for a couple of sessions and wasting my time I gave up.

Yes. Being a nutrition expert doesn't mean they have to follow the diet themself, and even then sometimes genetic factors can influence it. As long as they had all the qualifications and knowledge it would be fine - not all nutrition advice is targeted at weight loss anyway

I've seen loads of overweight nurses talking about diabetes, nursed and doctors who smoke and drink advising against it. And more recently through work, a healthy weight group for disabled people and all the people who run it are size 18+. Very confusing for them even though what is being taught is great.

In my country there is a saying that the house of the exterior painter is always badly painted. Because it is your profession already, you are less able to apply it to your private situation.

I have a friend who works as a family counselor ( giving parenting advice professionally) well let’s just say she had a very tough time raising her own kids.

It's a bit like how you would never expect a careers advisor to have tried all the different careers they are advising

No I wouldn’t (although it would be hard to tell if someone was depressed). I wouldn’t be able to trust the advice an overweight HCP was giving me.

• an obese

Sometimes if you have a problem it is good to speak to someone with lived experience of that problem.

If someone has never struggled with their weight or mental health or whatever, then they may not have any appreciation of what it's like. They may come across as "well I don't know what the problem is just do what I do, its easy" however unintentionally.

I have an acquaintance who criticises others with mental health problems behind their back, saying that he looks after his mental health by going to yoga and meditating and he doesn't understand why they don't do that to sort themselves out. He has never suffered mental health problems, and I personally don't think he has a clue what he's on about and comes across as smug. I would hate him to be a therapist to a vulnerable person (luckily he's not!).

I agree - I think the lived experience is really important. I also think that lived experience should include actually losing the weight (or whatever), not just the state of being.

Funnily enough my facebook reels last night showed me the weight loss journeys of several obese people. Although they lost weight, they went from about size 22+ To 18. As I said before the eat well and exercise is always good no matter who it’s from and hopefully it will inspire other obese people to diet and exercise. Much better than watching (american) obese people overeat imo.

For me there is a particular middle ground where people are most relatable. Say taking weight loss advice from a nutritionist- if she or he is obese then no, can't take them seriously, if they are particularly slim then no, they couldn't possibly understand me. But someone who has is average probably needs to work at it is credible to me. Same with gym instructors or anything to do with fitness. If they look like they could gain weight if they didn't follow their own advice then I relate and perform much better. But that's cos I'm a bit overweight myself, if I was a slimmer person I'd probably be put off by a person who is a bit heavier. It sounds judgemental but it's the truth about how my trust and comfort level is with the person.

Absolutely agree @LaMaG - the person needs to be relatable in that they need to look like they apply the advice they’re giving out to themselves and understand what’s involved in getting to that stage.

When I read responses like the majority of these, I wonder how the human race ever survived the ice age and made it out of the caves.

How would you know if your therapist was depressed? Tbh a lot of people go into therapy as a profession as they’ve had issues themselves, so for me the answer is yes on that one as long as they were effective.
An obese nutritionist- depends why they’re obese Ie are they on meds that have weight gain as a side effect? I probably would doubt their advice if they were majorly overweight as you’d think they practice as they preach esp
if I was seeing someone privately.

I would have no problem with taking nutritional advice from a fat HCP. Their being overweight doesn't mean the advice is bad- we all know that it can be a lot easier to know what to eat than to do it in practice. I think people sometimes take nutritional advice as a sort of moral lecture and therefore think the HCP is a hypocrite (like telling someone not to steal when you are a thief yourself) but it really isn't.

Depressed therapist- how would I know? It's possible to be depressed and good at your job, and if anything experience of MH issues might give them greater empathy. OTOH if they were always going on about it, that would be unprofessional, just as it would be unprofessional to go on about how happy they were.