| Even though
obesity has become a national epidemic, doctors continue to not advise
their patients to lose weight. Research showed that in the year 2000,
only 40 percent of doctors advised their patients to drop some weight.
This was a drop from the 42.5 percent in 1994.
It was discovered that the patients who were recommended by their
doctors to lose weight were around three times more likely to follow
through and lose the weight than those patients who weren’t
given any recommendations.
Experts stated that diagnosing obesity in patients, advising treatment
and scheduling regular check ups was just as important as treating
hypertension and diabetes. Experts have also urged doctors to include
advising weight loss to overweight patients due to its link to serious
health consequences such as diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure,
heart disease and certain cancers.
Statistics revealed that 30 percent of U.S. adults are afflicted
with obesity.
The defense offered by doctors was that they didn’t feel they
had enough knowledge on obesity to offer recommendations on it.
Other experts claimed that doctors’ lack of recommendations
regarding obesity stemmed from the absence of training and education
on nutrition.
Yahoo!
News April 19, 2004
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