Overweight doctors can’t ignore patients’ obesity issues

Both patients and doctors can struggle with their weight and obesity.

Although overweight doctors may feel hypocritical counseling their patients to lose weight, obesity experts say it’s the message and not the messenger that’s important in helping patients, according to Medscape.

“Regardless of a doctor's own body weight, their communication with patients should be the same," psychologist Rebecca Puhl, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Connecticut, told the publication. Doctors should counsel patients that body weight is determined by complex factors, work with them to set realistic goals and focus on supporting them to engage in healthy behaviors, she said.

In fact, overweight doctors may be better able to get overweight patients to change their eating habits, as patients may be more willing to take their advice, according to psychologist Sara Bleich, Ph.D., assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Physicians should realize it can be tough for patients who are overweight to visit a doctor’s office and never fat-shame a patient who is obese. Doctors need to show empathy and use a whole-person approach to provide them with quality care.

Doctors must also advise patients that there’s not one weight-loss approach that works for everyone, according to a report in The New York Times. A treatment that works for one person, will do nothing for another. Researchers now look at obesity not as one disease but as many, much like cancer.

Obesity specialists say that to help people find an effective way to lose weight, doctors should look first for an obvious cause for a person’s excess weight, such as a drug or a disease that can cause weight gain. If that’s not the case, specialists suggest patients try various approaches starting with the least invasive option, and hope a particular diet, exercise routine or change works. If one approach doesn't work, try another.