Industry News

Doctors Need More Resources To Help Patients Lose Weight

Employer-Sponsored Programs Can Help

While many primary care doctors say they don’t have the right resources to help their overweight or obese patients lose weight, tools offered through employers and health plans can help fill the gap.

A survey of 290 primary care physicians commissioned by the Stop Obesity Alliance found that 89 percent of primary care doctors believe they are responsible for helping their patients lose weight, but 72 percent said that no one in their practice was trained in weight-related issues.

As healthcare providers debate what is needed in their offices, people can turn to the workplace for employer-sponsored health and wellness seminars and programs, friendly competition and weight-loss clubs. For help with weight loss and other lifestyle issues, employee benefit plans have used anything from health coaching to online health management systems to offer guidance and support.

Carol Wagner, a holistic nutrition consultant based in the Chicago area, said she’s seeing more corporations offer their employees a multi-year focus on health and wellness, providing both fitness and nutrition education, a critical combination for weight-loss success.

“The challenge is that people don’t have the right educational information,” she said. “People are making decisions with out-of-date information. They think they’re making the right choices, but they’re not losing weight, and they feel defeated. That’s why it’s important for companies to bring in experts about fitness and nutrition who can give the most up-to-date information and really help employees meet their weight loss goals.”

For example, people trying to do the right thing may drink diet soda with a zero-calorie artificial sweetener, she said, but they may not realize that their decision may be making their weight-loss efforts more difficult. In a Purdue University study, rats that were given food with an artificial sweetener ate more and gained more weight than rats that were given food with sugar, she said. Researchers theorize that artificial sweeteners interfere with a body’s natural ability to regulate caloric intake, according to a Feb. 11, 2008, WebMd article.

Research has also demonstrated that people gain more strength and lose more weight by implementing an exercise regimen involving short, high-intensity exercise followed by a recovery period, rather than doing steady endurance training. “But so many people don’t know that sprint-recovery is the way to go to get the most out of your exercise program,” Wagner said. “If you’re going to make the time for exercise, don’t you want to get the maximum benefits?”

Physicians who want to step up their efforts in helping their patients lose weight may want to consider findings contained in a March 16, 2010, white paper from the STOP Obesity Alliance research team at The George Washington University. They identified five areas to explore to improve how primary care doctors treat patients who are obese:

• Monitoring weight, health indicators and risk
• Assessing patient motivation
• Defining success
• Increasing integration and care coordination
• Implementing electronic medical records

For more information, read the white paper, “Improving Obesity Management in Adult Primary Care,” or this March 15, 2010, article from USA Today.