Thin privilege is having support and treatment available for joint problems.

Every fat person who has joint problems has, at one time or another, had their doctor tell them that losing weight would help their joints. It’s one of those things that doctors assume constantly: fatness = joint problems.

Now, if being fat causes joint problems, you would think there would be a huge market for plus size joint braces and supports, you know, so that we could stop being in pain long enough to exercise, which would help our joints.

Yet every time I have needed a brace or support for a joint (because I have a genetic collagen defect) I cannot find anything in my size. I can’t get a shoulder brace for my shoulder that keeps dislocating. I can’t get an SI belt for my pelvis that keeps subluxating. They don’t make them in my size. So I can’t get any pain relief besides increasing doses of opiates, and I can’t exercise (or even walk) without risking further damage to my joints.

So either being fat doesn’t cause joint problems, because if it did, doctors should be offering ample help and support for those problems particularly for fat people, or being fat does cause joint problems but doctors are refusing to offer support and pain relief because they believe that fat people deserve pain as punishment for being fat.

Either way, the health care system is completely and utterly failing to care for my health.