weight loss and Physicians

Yesterday I was seeing stories about the First Lady becoming very involved with a campaign targeting childhood obesity. As I have mentioned previously, the life expectancy of the younger generation is LESS THAN their parents' generation. This is because of the epidemic of childhood obesity. This problem has incredible ramifications for the national health, healthcare expenditures, etc. I applaud the efforts of the First Lady and any other high profile politician/actor/actress to become involved with putting a higher focus on this problem.

I am supposed to go to a conference today (good luck at the airport) of primary care physicians. The INBODY body composition device in our office is from General Electric and I am a "speaker/expert" for them. They have a device on the show floor of a primary care physician convention. I will be meeting many physicians ALL of whom have overweight patients in their practices. Yet, very few of these doctors take a proactive role in helping their patients lose weight. I am certain that most of them will recommend to their overweight patients with co-morbidities such as hypertension, diabetes, etc. that they lose weight. However, if losing weight was that easy, America would not be 68% overweight.

I do believe that every physician should be proactive in helping thier patients lose weight. I am not saying they need to have a full blown program such as ours, but there has to be more of an effort than just telling a person they need to lose weight (the overweight person knows this already) and handing them a 1200 calorie dietary sheet.

In most cases, overweight people are left to their own devices and then turn to the commercial programs such as buying Nutrisystems, supplements off the internet etc.

I do not blame my colleagues in primary care because the insurance companies have forced most into a volume-driven practice were there is virtually no time to really get intoi weight loss with the patients and moreover the insurance companies will not reimburse for nutritionists or otjher weight loss services. The insurance companies still do not get the concept that they would save much money by helping physicians prevent medical conditions rather than paying for the medications, hospitalizations etc that accompany the co-morbidities of obesity.