Do doctors recommend it to obese patients who lose weight?

In 1998, the National Institute of Health in the United States, issued recommendations to health professionals, urging them to suggest to their patients with obesity, tracking a weight loss plan.

After a time, were evaluated whether the obese patients had received a recommendation from health professionals that cared about the importance of beginning a plan for losing weight, and if, moreover, had followed the advice or not . The methodology consisted of a telephone survey of a representative sample of the population from 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. This included nearly 13,000 people over 18 years, diagnosed as obese and who had attended a routine medical checkup in the past 12 months. The diagnosis of obesity was conducted by linking the peso to the size of the patient, through an index called “Body Mass Index” When it was greater than or equal to 30, the person was diagnosed as obese.

Only 22 percent of obese mentioned having received the recommendation of losing weight on the part of health professionals that attended. In general, patients who received recommendations were more women in middle age, with a high level of education. Residents of poorer areas, with low levels of education showed a poor perception of their health and a high degree of obesity, in addition to diabetes.

People who received the recommendation to lose weight they had done something to achieve, compared with those who had not received any advice.

Less than half of obese adults reported having received any recommendations from health professionals to lose weight. This demonstrates the need to raise awareness not only to patients about the importance of this disease so that health problems and social life entails, but also to the same doctors and health professionals. Without the latter objective achieved, it becomes really difficult to get the alarming decline in numbers of overweight and obesity, which increase every day throughout the world.