Hell hath no fury like a fat-shamed bureaucrat.
Just ask Kim Bimestefer, executive director of the state’s Health Care Policy and Financing Department, who was ratted out for using public resources to promote a family member’s miracle diet book at a mandatory staff meeting.
Leading the presentation was Dr. Terry Wahls, who just happens to be the cousin of Bimestefer’s partner, according to Colorado Politics, which broke the story.
Wahls claimed her nutrition and lifestyle program, which you can read about if you buy her book, cured her multiple sclerosis and delivered her from a wheelchair to a bicycle.
Attendees said Wahls claimed her recommended diet “would lead to a miraculous healing of MS,” told those who can’t afford high-quality foods to “start hunting more for their own meat,” and compared feeding children Pop-Tarts to child abuse. Sources told Colorado Politics Wahls said she would “rather die than be disabled.”
“Even as staff began to complain in the online chat that they were uncomfortable with the topic and presentation, and felt it was inappropriate to be fat-shamed at a mandatory staff meeting, the presentation went on for almost an hour,” a HCPF source told Colorado Politics, adding the diet has nothing to do with the agency’s work handling Medicaid for low-income and disabled Coloradans. The claim of “fat-shaming” was confirmed by other staff members.
It all sounds so horribly awkward. Colorado Politics did an open record request, and while they couldn’t get a copy of the Zoom video, they did get the comments from state employees.
Most were positive, except this one:
“It’s really troubling that Kim is using state resources to promote a family member at a required all-staff meeting.”
You can read all about her credentials and clinical trials in the story.
Gov. Polis’s office refused to comment on whether this was an appropriate use of taxpayer money. Probably because he has no idea what an appropriate use of taxpayer money is.