Newswise — “We see the world, not as it is, but as we are,” says the Talmud. Unfortunately, the opposite seems to be true for overweight doctors, who are dramatically less likely to recognize patients’ weight problems in their diagnoses. The risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes — indeed most major illness — is vastly increased by lifestyle factors. So you’d think that weight status would be vitally important to consider in treating patients. But startling new research suggests medical professionals’ own weight issues may be clouding how they see — and counsel — patients.
In a paper titled “Impact of Physician BMI on Obesity Care and Beliefs” (Obesity, 2011), Johns Hopkins researchers used a cross-sectional survey of 500 primary care physicians to explore whether care givers’ weight status (as reflected in their body mass index, or BMI) impacted interaction with obese patients. The results were rather shocking. Compared to their normal-weight peers, overweight physicians were 20% less likely to counsel patients on weight control. Indeed, they were a stunning 86% less likely to even acknowledge that patients were overweight — in other words, while 93% of normal-weight doctors recorded an obese BMI, only 7% of overweight doctors did so!
These results parallel previous findings in which doctors who smoked were far less likely to identify patients’ smoking habits as a health concern. While we might expect doctors to be more informed — and objective — when it comes to identifying such serious risk factors, we have seen that a large proportion of the general public is “overweight and in denial,” rejecting the notion that healthy eating might mitigate disease risk. Indeed, many continue to believe the “fit but fat” falsehood, despite research showing that active, overweight women have a 54% increased risk of heart disease compared to active, normal-weight peers.
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