How does embarrassment affect your health?

Inside Health

BBC

Health & Fitness, Science

4.4 • 575 Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There are so many campaigns now to stop stigma and embarrassment - from Davina McCall talking about the menopause to Idris Elba campaigning for black men to get their prostate checked.

And when we asked for your stories of how embarrassment impacts your health, our inbox was flooded with stories of incontinence, IBS, genital problems, skin issues, fertility troubles, fatty lumps and more - along with the huge and varied ways these issues are affecting your lives.

So, how does embarrassment affect how we behave regarding our health, how can doctors and our health service adapt to alleviate it, and do awareness campaigns really help?

To discuss James Gallagher is joined by:

Dr Margaret McCartney, GP Dr Vanessa Apea, consultant in sexual health at Barts Health NHS Trust and Medical Director at Preventx Professor Ruth Parry, communications expert who studies clinician-patient interactions about sensitive issues.

Plus, James gets some top tips to help alleviate embarrassment when talking to your doctor.

Presenter: James Gallagher Producer: Hannah Robins Content Editor: Holly Squire Production Coordinator: Ismael Soriano

This programme was produced in partnership with The Open University.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Greg Jenna and good news, Your Dead to Me is back for a new series. Here we go. Yes, we'll explore Emperor Nero's notorious reign with Professor Marybeard and Patton Oswald. I would not want my daughter having the remote control, not alone an empire. We'll dissect the decadent life of Philippe Duke-Dor-Leon with Tom Allen. I've often tried to pretend I'm an aristocrat and being very quickly knocked down. And there'll be so much more with comedians like Olga Koch, Mike Mosniak and Rihalina. I'm excited. You're dead to me. The comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Listen first on BBC Sounds. Hello there and welcome to the Inside Health podcast. I'm James Gallagher. Can you remember the last
0:38.8	time you were embarrassed? How about embarrassed about your health? Or even so embarrassed you didn't
0:45.5	seek help? I'm sure you've heard celebrities like Davina McCall talking about the shroud of
0:50.8	embarrassment around the menopause. What about Idris Elba, Morgan Freeman, Tewitel Edgiofore, and Michael Ward, tackling embarrassment
0:59.2	around prostate cancer in black men?
1:02.6	Too embarrassed to speak to your doctor.
1:05.4	When in our lifetime, one in four black men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer.
1:10.4	That could be your dad. even your older brother or grandfather.
1:14.8	You need to make sure they are not embarrassed to speak to you or their doctor about it.
1:20.1	That's definitely the most A-list cast we've ever had on Inside Health.
1:23.7	But you really don't have to look far to find the e-word embarrassment cropping up in
1:28.7	relation to healthcare. A surveyed this year by Bupa found 57% of women finding women's health
1:34.8	issues are still a taboo subject. The MS Society found more than a third of people with
1:40.1	multiple sclerosis were avoiding help for things related to their bladder or sexual problems
1:45.1	because of embarrassment. And researchers are working on at home cervical cancer checks, in part
1:51.6	because of embarrassment around traditional checks. So all this has been brewing in our heads,
1:57.2	but you all at home convinced us we should make a program about embarrassment because when I mentioned it last series, our inbox, InsideHealth at BBC.co.
2:05.6	.
2:06.6	It was genuinely inundated. It was so touching, so many moving stories from you all.
2:10.6	So thank you for getting in touch.
2:12.6	This program is for you.
2:14.6	I've got three amazing guests to talk through embarrassment with you. So I'm joined
	...

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