Hello, my name is Ellen Buijnink, married and mother of a beautiful son. we live in a small village in the south of the Netherlands.
For most of my adult life I have had a problem with my weight. Always worrying, losing weight and gaining weight again, a lot of sadness and feeling bad and not to mention my insecurity. But despite all those bad feelings, I didn’t manage to lose weight permanently. The turning point came after my mother died, I decided to ask for help and April 11, 2019 I got my gastric bypass and my life changed.
I lost over 50 kg which is great but especially mentally it has brought me so much more, I am now doing things I never thought I would dare to do and I am on a mission. I want to create more awareness for the person behind the overweight or obesity.
I now do this at work (I work for an occupational health and safety service), by providing training to our doctors and other healthcare professionals in which I share my story of how it feels to live with overweight or obesity, what you encounter, the sadness and the impotence that it really is not as easy as people think and that there is usually much more to it than the easy judgment “every pound goes through the mouth”
I am now also a member of the board of the Dutch Association for Overweight & Obesity (NVOO) we are committed to the representation and advocacy of people living with overweight or obesity in the Netherlands. And I do that with great pleasure!
I think it’s great that I can now be part of ECPO and that we are all fighting for obesity in Europe to be seen and recognized as a disease and treated as such.
I hope to inspire people with my story, you are good as you are and that is the most important thing!