Warning: scathing sarcasm follows

This is the kind of nonsense from the psychological establishment that drives me nuts.

I was taking a look at online news, and I clicked onto a health news item that was headlined, “mental woes common on weight loss surgery patients.” The article cited tests given to surgery candidates that were “83 percent female and 88 percent white, with an average age of 46 years. Their average body mass index was 52.” To translate the stupid, misleading, over-simplified and completely useless “BMI” number (don’t even get me STARTED…!!!!!), a 5’6″ person with a BMI of 52 would weigh 321 pounds.

So, the article goes on to talk about the “lifelong mental disorders” found in this group, including personality disorders. It says, “A lifetime history of personality disorder was noted in 28 percent of the subjects, the most common being avoidant personality disorder.”

“Avoidant personality disorder”–well, golly gee, what’s that, Mr. Scientist? Let’s go to Internet Mental Health and look up the diagnostic criteria for this jolly little “disorder.” Here they are (American version):

A pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:

1. avoids occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact, because of fears of criticism, disapproval, or rejection
2. is unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked
3. shows restraint within intimate relationships because of the fear of being shamed or ridiculed
4. is preoccupied with being criticized or rejected in social situations
5. is inhibited in new interpersonal situations because of feelings of inadequacy
6. views self as socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others
7. is unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities because they may prove embarrassing

Well, GEE! Do you think there might possibly be some reason that a person who has suffered from extreme obesity all her life would express those feelings, besides some effin’ mental disorder?

The article, and apparently the study, doesn’t even consider this! It goes on, “The findings, the investigators point out, ‘are consistent with studies suggesting psychosocial impairment among (weight-loss) surgery patients.'”

If those investigators knew what I was thinking about them right now, I’d be diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder with highly aggressive features, I’m sure. :-p