Pictured in OP in the upper left is: Assistant Secretary for Health, Admiral Rachael L. Levine, MD..
Her clinical and public health work has helped people dealing with a range of medical issues, including eating disorders, the opioid crisis, and COVID-19
- graduated from Harvard College in 1979
- Graduated Tulane University School of Medicine in 1983
- Chief resident in her final year
- Held staff positions at Mount Sinai and Lenox Hill
- Worked in private practice in New York City until 1993
- She specialized in the treatment of adolescents suffering from eating disorders
- In 1993, Levine accepted a job on the faculty at the Penn State College of Medicine
- Director of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at the Poly-Clinic Medical Center
- In 1996, Director of Pediatric Ambulatory Services and the Director of Adolescent Medicine at Penn State Hershey Medical Center
- Transitioned fully by 2011
- Worked with the administration to craft the “Levine Policy” that included gender identity and expression as protected categories.
- Levine, previously the faculty advisor for the LGBTQ student group, became the diversity office’s liaison for LGBTQ affairs and helped the medical center establish itself as a more welcoming environment for members of the LGBTQ community.
- joined the board of Equality Pennsylvania, a state-wide LGBTQ rights group, as well as her regional Stonewall Democrats group (an LGBT caucus).
- When Democratic candidate Tom Wolf won the election for governor of Pennsylvania in 2014, Levine was asked to serve as co-chair for his Transition Committee for Health.
- January 2015, Governor-elect Wolf appointed Levine Physician General of Pennsylvania and she was unanimously confirmed by the Pennsylvania state senate.
- Kept her faculty appointment at Penn State but gave up her clinical duties to work with the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
- named Pennsylvania Secretary of Health in March 2018,
- As Physician General and Penn Sec of Health, Levine worked to provide greater access to healthcare for the LGBTQ community.
- Also sought to improve maternal health and childhood immunization rates.
- Her main focus was the opioid crisis in Pennsylvania.
- Levine issued an order that let Pennsylvanians buy Naloxone without a prescription and allowed law enforcement to carry it, preventing many overdose deaths
- President Joseph R. Biden nominated Levine to serve as the 17th Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
- Confirmed by the Senate in March 2021 by a vote of 58-42
- She is the first openly transgender official to be confirmed by the Senate
- She is also the highest-ranking openly transgender official in U.S. history.
Having read about her, I think she is awesome and a fantastic choice!
#🏳️⚧️
Yes, managing ones own health and managing policy and resources relating to health are different things. She seams more than qualified to me. I wish Florida had someone half as competent as Surgeon General.
So what you’re saying is that this person is aware of the risks of obesity and doesn’t care, or doesn’t take the risks of obesity seriously. Either should make them ineligible to decide for other people’s health.
I’m saying that some people have one set of skills that is distinct from another. If they can help others, we should let them, regardless of whether they can help themselves. There’s far more to public health policy than knowing what diet is good for you. Besides knowing what diet is good for you and eating that diet yourself are very different.
My bad, I meant to reply to someone else actually.
But to your point, what I’m saying is that you should practice what you preach, just as I wouldn’t take Trump’s advice on how to be a business man, I won’t trust an unhealthy person on how to be healthy.
I mean just because someone is fat doesn’t mean they’re just disregarding their health. There are a lot of causes for obesity.
TLDR; Fat.
The sweet irony of trying to make fun of people while being unable to spell a country’s name though…
Also, neither the British nor the Canadian current health ministers are those pictured.
OP isn’t head of the Ministry of Spelling.
Small blessings.
But what a ride it would be.
Nor are they the head of the Ministry of Kindness
Head of the Ministry of Being a Shallow Asshole though.
I know this is supposed to be funny, but both the British and Canadian ministers have been changed.
They all have been changed. The pic is just a very old repost.
Tbh, the us and Canadian pics make them look open and friendly, which would be a glorious thing to have in any government position.
The other two? I’m fairly sure there’s gotta be a pic of them where they don’t look pissed off.
Seriously, nobody with a brain gives a fuck about a health authority’s health conditions. It simply isn’t relevant. Obesity, in that instance, is no different than the health official having MS, or the flu, or being a drinker/smoker. It doesn’t matter if they follow health guidelines, it matters if they’re qualified to administrate the department they’re running. Hell, if they could maintain, it wouldn’t matter if they were addicts in that regard.
Plus, as much as people hate to remember, obesity is not without medical causes, and there’s a shit ton more of those causes than people in general are aware of. You also can’t visually diagnose the vast majority of those (there are a couple with clear changes to the body other than obesity that you can tell once you learn them), so making a pre-judgement without having a related medical background yourself is fucking stupid.
Why should I follow the health advice of someone who can’t follow it themselves? Why should I trust that what they tell me is true when they’re not capable of being healthy?
It’s like a doctor telling you that smoking is horrible for your health between puffs of a cigarette.
We should expect that our health officials can follow their own advice, if only because good appearances can help convince the public to follow it.
So if the guy with one arm tells me not to stick my arm out the window of a moving vehicle, I should ignore him?
It doesn’t get more ad hominem than this. Why does it matter what they do in their personal life if their ministerial outcomes are good?
Yeah it’s almost like people in high stress jobs don’t always have the healthiest life habits.
From what Ive seen it is often the fact that a big part of a politicians job is attenting public events and dinners and such where food is involved. Though stress will probably also play into it
Exactly! I’m so glad we lowered the bar for them!
“i manage people’s health, not my health!”
“See this signpost here? Does it show you the way? It does. And do you want it to walk somewhere?”
They guide others to a treasure they cannot possess
I feel like they went down the chain of command to find the fat one and the most unflattering photo they could of them to. Like the US one reports to the Secretary of Health and Human Services who reports to the president. Thus the assistant in the title. I sorta assume the same applies to the other countries.
Hey look, blatant propaganda in the form of a meme. Neat.
It makes sense in a perverse way that the person in charge of the healthcare system should be unhealthy because then they’d have intimate knowledge with the healthcare system and it’s shortcomings.
and its* shortcomings
laughs nervously as heart attack begins
belgUIm
I don’t get it
Unhealthy people being in health leadership roles isn’t really leading by example.
These people are unhealthy?
They are clearly obese, which is always unhealthy even if it doesn’t have immediate negative impacts in the short term. Being body positive is a great response to body shaming, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t underlying health issues.
If they weren’t in health leadership positions, their obesity wouldn’t be relevant.
They are all obese, yes.
Therese Coffey who was the last British health secretary, is well known for being a heavy drinker and cigar smoker so yes she’s unhealthy.
🥱
People in charge of ensuring others health can’t even do the basic of maintaining their own.
Feel free to share a poorly framed photograph of yourself so we can make comments about your body.
Why? Is he in a public leadership position as well?
I’m not sure how that changes whether or not youre entitled to make comments about other people’s bodies.
If someone works in the public sphere, they can expect to be critiqued in the public sphere.
lmao do you actually believe the shit you’re saying??
“we believe it’s acceptable to body shame you simply because you are within the eyes of the public”
what an absolutely fucking asinine belief
no wonder this world is so full of hate and bigotry with people like you in it“we believe it’s acceptable to body shame you simply because you are within the eyes of the public”
what an absolutely fucking asinine belief
Agreed, the straw-man you set up is truly reprehensible. Good thing what I actually think is:
“We believe it is acceptable to question your ability to be a leader in the health sector because you don’t have a healthy body.”
If a CEO of an anti-acne company had terrible acne, would you buy acne medicine from them?
If your dentist had terrible teeth and poor oral hygiene, would you get dental work from them?
If your dietician told you to eat a salad, while they were between bites of a Big Mac, would you listen to them?
Oh am i a health leader?
you seem to feel entitled to making comments about others people’s bodies.
So no, im not in charge of leading a nations health.
OP thinks “healthy” people are anorexic supermodels who have doctored photos taken in ideal conditions.
TIL anyone who isn’t morbidly obese is an anorexic supermodel with a personal photographer.
The Belgan one looks like somebody smushed one head back into a different, doughier head.
Hey, reddit went through a fatphobia phase like 10 years ago. I think we can be better than that
It’s not phobia to admit that being obese is unhealthy.
In that what this meme is? Or is it just being an asshole behind the thin veneer of “It’s ok to be an asshole as long as the people deserve it by being unhealthy”?
No it’s definitely trying to say that we shouldn’t pay unhealthy people for their opinions on health
These people are unworthy to be taken seriously because they’re fat. I dunno, sounds pretty much like an asshole behavior and justification to me.
unworthy to be taken seriously in healthcare because they’re fat
It’s not hard to understand lol
Oh, that specific circumstance makes your behavior and body shaming ok and not asshole behavior at all. Thanks for clearing that up. You can make fun of these people as much as you want and everybody should praise you for doing so. You did a good thing today.
If that’s your headcanon, then sure buddy
You’re right, we can! Yet still the majority of people are overweight, so we’re clearly not fixing the issue.
We don’t want to end up like reddit where we sit back and say ‘this is okay’ to every problem in the world.
