Hi Sean, thanks for taking time to read and respond. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and I’m curious to hear more. You seem to agree that compassionate care is important, did anything in your training address trauma, stigma, or other social determinants of health? Even though explicit bias in healthcare is declining, I find there’s still a lot of unaddressed implicit bias and it’s vital that providers recognize and understand the role their biases and privilege play when providing care.

I don’t place blame on healthcare providers; they are a product of their training and the way our healthcare system is designed in its present state. I was educated in a very westernized, weight-centric mindset myself and struggled to come to terms that there are alternative (and in my opinion, better) ways to counsel for behavior change. But I will respectfully push back to your claim that “once you give up personal responsibility, you are lost.” Yes, there is a role for internal motivations and values to positively influence health. But there has to be an environment conducive to creating the empowered associations for people to participate in healthcare. I believe creating a culture of consent in health care is only one small way to start doing that.

I can tell you care deeply about your work and the people you care for so I look forward to hearing back. Thanks again for responding.