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can you be a physiotherapist if your fat

hi firstly I posted this forum so I could stay anonymous
I wondered if you were fat can you be a physiotherapist I mean I know their must be some that are overweight or large
but im wanting to apply this yr for physiotherapy at uni (currently dong my a levels ) I just dont ant them to hold it against me. I mean they say you have to be in good shape

I exercise a hell of a lot and I mean a lot with cardio and weights ( lifting like 80 kg ) and swim and have always done sports at a young age and eat healthy but I am fat. and I mean fat . I just feel really frustrated by it and worried tbh

worst is my family are really pushing for me to lose weight like not be skinny but lighter by like 4 stone ish. I don't know I mean I want to lose weight and I am toned for a fat person lol but I don't know just lately I feel inadequate and like im an embarrassment to them. just recently I started to realise that I like myself even though im fat sounds weird but yh. its still a battle thou sometimes I do and odnt I think im just at that age being 17 and finding myself
any advice :smile:

Reply 1

megthearcher

Every PE teacher who I ever had in secondary school was fat! So ya, agreed....anything is possible!!!!!!!

Reply 2

581371

Yeah, seems to be more about theory anyway..

Yeah course

I guess so! :u:

Well you hardly need to be Kate Moss if you specialize in respiratory with geriatric patients, if you see what I mean. Physio isn't all about sports but on the other hand, I suppose it would be more reassuring for patients if you looked like you practice what you preach as a healthcare worker.

I'm not saying you need to look like an Adonis, but it does seem logical that healthcare workers look healthy. I watched Junior Doctors on the BBC and one of the FY Docs was obese - that strikes me as hypocritical but at the same time, he'd passed all his exams and made a competent doctor. But I wouldn't fancy buying a car from a man with a pranged old Reliant Robbin if there was another guy with a well looked after Ford Focus.

There'd be hundreds of nurses/doctors/physios etc who would be unemployed if you couldn't be overweight to practice. 'Looking healthy' has nothing to do with how good of a physio/nurse/doctor you are - whether that's weight or physical disability. I'd like to think the NHS (if you intend to work for them) wouldn't be so short sighted to rule you out based on appearance, but we live in an unfair world and no matter what laws and rules are in place, people will have opinions which may not be in your favour and sometimes those people can influence your chances of getting a job. Sometimes those opinions are totally irrelevant but an overweight physio does seem to fall into the same category as a nudist tailor or a vegan butcher - incongruous. But that doesn't indicate that they're bad at their job.

You can't be discriminated against, legally, but people can and do discriminate - especially when there's an obvious disharmony between the values of your profession and your seeming lack of those values.