Futility and avoidance: medical professionals in the treatment of obesity

Article Abstract:

Medical treatment for obesity has suffered because of its association with quacks and schemers and the assumed futility. Despite the preponderance of evidence indicating that obesity is a metabolic disorder, the underlying belief that obesity is the patient's fault persists even among the medical community. Eating behavior and the regulation of body weight are complex processes controlled by numerous physiological systems. However, treatment of obesity, the most common metabolic disease, is generally left to non-professionals and inadequately trained counselors at weight-loss clinics. Other patients with incurable diseases such as diabetes, schizophrenia and AIDS are not abandoned, yet obese patients are. Achieving and maintaining weight loss is difficult and the long-term results of intervention are poor. However, they will not improve as long as the medical community continues to avoid its responsibility to obese patients.

Overweight persons

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Weight-loss regimens among overweight adults - behavioral risk factor surveillance system, 1987

Article Abstract:

It is recommended that by 1990 50 percent of the overweight people in the U.S. should be engaged in a weight loss regimen that combines a program of dietary management (e.g, eating fewer calories) and physical activity. Currently only a median 20.2 percent of males and 31.4 percent of females attempting to lose weight are engaged in a program that combines physical activity with diet. A median of 43.6 percent of males and 63.9 percent of females rely only on the reduced intake of calories as the sole means for decreasing body weight. Studies have demonstrated that combining physical activity and a low calorie diet is more effective for losing weight than relying on diet alone.

Health aspects, Physiological aspects, Reducing diets, Body weight, Low-calorie diet, Low calorie diet, Reducing exercises

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A 33-Year-Old Woman With Morbid Obesity

Article Abstract:

Surgery may be the best treatment for patients who are obese and do not respond to other treatments. Obesity is defined as a body mass index of 30 or more. The body mass index compares body weight to body height. Half of all Americans are overweight and 22% are obese. Obesity causes about 300,000 deaths in the US every year. About 40% of obesity is attributed to genes and 60% to environment and behavior. If dietary changes don't work, drugs are available that suppress appetite. Phentermine is the most common obesity drug.

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