Virginie Blanchette, a podiatrist and researcher, proudly quotes Lady Gaga’s lyrics: “I was born this way.” She says she’s had weight problems as far back as she can remember, but she’s always felt okay in her body. Growing up in rural Quebec, Virginie was a bigger girl and teenager, but she participated in sports and social events, and made good friends.
However, she says society didn’t approve of her weight. Doctors and people would discuss her weight with her parents, making her feel like her body was a problem. Her parents put her on a diet, as recommended by doctors, who told them she was too big for her age and her weight would impact her health.
Self-love and acceptance
Despite this, Virginie felt confident and celebrated who she was, even in a larger body. She was a leader in her family, played sports, and did many things. But this confidence changed when she started dealing with the healthcare system as an older teenager. She began to stress about her body and the way people talked about it, which led to poor habits and self-doubt.
By university, Virginie’s self-doubt had grown, and she felt like she wasn’t enough because of her larger body. She needed to do more to be a good healthcare professional, she thought. But she eventually realized that her extra weight could be a window to deep empathy and understanding for her patients, many of whom lived with type 2 diabetes and carried additional weight.
Virginie’s personal experience supported her career as a podiatrist, where she helps people with diabetes who have foot problems and foot wounds. She works to save them from amputation and focuses her research on foot health. Her research lab is at Vitam Research Centre in Quebec City, and she’s also a podiatry professor at the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières.
She explains that it’s difficult to do physical activities when you have foot pain, and it can be hard to follow healthy habits when you’re dealing with feelings around being in a larger body. Virginie’s research has a patient-centered focus, and she wants to make sure that people have access to healthcare services and education around self-advocacy and obesity treatments.
Advocacy and education
Virginie is the director of advocacy and education with Parlons Obésité, the French division of Obesity Matters, a national advocacy patient organization. She wants to raise awareness about obesity and provide people with the tools they need to support their health. She believes that good lifestyle habits, such as sleeping well, eating well, and exercising, are universal and can help people living in larger bodies or not.
Virginie’s own journey working through the healthcare system has had its ups and downs. She shares examples of doctors who put her on diets without asking questions to understand the underlying issues of her weight. She also faced stigma when looking for help with fertility, and had to find different specialists where she felt safe and supported.
Her advocacy has become even closer to her heart after her mom passed away from an acute problem linked to obesity. Virginie wants to put an equity lens on obesity and make sure that people are informed about their health and where they can go for help. She says there are plenty of tools in the toolbox regarding obesity, and she wants to help people access them.
Virginie is candid about her personal journey and becoming happy again about who she is in a larger body. She wants the same for others living with obesity, and she believes that with access to education and support, people can follow lifestyle habits that support a life rich in activities, free from the hospital, and just be happy in their own body. She works with a team at the University of Sherbrooke and also supports a group at the University of Calgary that works on obesity stigma during fertility and pregnancy, and her work continues to focus on helping others with similar challenges.
