The Canadian Medical Association Journal recently ran a commentary entitled “Who you calling obese, Doc?”.1 It noted that in most Western nations, obesity, as defined by a body mass index of 30 kg/m2 or higher, has assumed epidemic proportions, and the word, like many others in the medical lexicon, has been absorbed into the vernacular.
Dr Sally Satel, psychiatrist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, DC, has published her thesis on the weakening and dilution of medical language in PC, M.D. How political correctness is corrupting medicine.2 She claims that twisting language to avoid occasioning hurt can sometimes be more insulting than edifying: “You are basically sending the message that people are so fragile that they can’t tolerate reality”.
However, to fall back on a well worn cliché: there is nothing new under the sun. Euphemisms have always been embedded in our language as we have habitually sought to cushion our emotional response to taboo subjects, such as these examples noted elsewhere: death (“going to sleep”), pregnancy loss (“born still” or “stillborn”) and menstruation (“time of the month”).1
Like many other things in medicine, we have lost control of our language.
- Martin B Van Der Weyden