Thin privilege is being able to go to the doctor’s with a specific set of problems you need to talk about, and actually having the doctor talk to you about those problems and only those problems.

I went to the doctor’s recently to ask for a referral to a psychiatrist and an optometrist, and to talk about medication for my asthma. When she finally saw me, she looked at my chart, looked at me, and then said, “So what are you doing to lose weight?”

Those were her first words she said to me. Not, “What are you here for”, or, “So how are you today?”. Just, “What are you doing to lose weight?”

She then proceeded to try looking for excuses not to give me any referrals. Apparently, a medical condition that I was diagnosed with by a former psychiatrist means nothing, because I’m clearly depressed because I’m fat. Clearly, I just need to lose weight to help with my asthma, despite not being able to walk down the street on a hot day without having to take a puff off my inhaler. No, I’m not even allowed to breathe properly so I can actually exercise to lose weight even if I wanted to. And let’s not even talk about the eyes; even though I couldn’t see half of the eye-testing chart and told her that I suffer from horrid migraines when reading. After all, why should she, the gracious doctor she is, take the time to fill out a referral form for a fat person that is clearly fat because they don’t care about themselves?

Let’s be honest, if I was thin, she would have done those referrals in a heartbeat, because no thin person should have to suffer from depression, asthma, or shitty eyes, because those medical conditions(the eyes, even! she tried to blame them on me.) came about because they are real medical conditions, not because the person is fat.