it is pretty damn obvious that you do not walk your talk!!

An interesting new study shows that doctors who are overweight are much less likely to talk to their obese patients about their weight problems. The research which was recently published by the clinical journal Obesity looked at almost 500 doctors of whom around half were of a normal weight, 38 percent were classified as overweight and 15 percent were classified as obese.

The results of the survey showed the doctors were likely to start talking about weight loss with an obese patient in 89 percent of cases provided that the patient was more overweight than them. Interestingly however if the doctor perceived that the obese patients was less overweight than themselves the weight loss conversation was only initiated in 11 percent of cases.

Professor Sara Bleich from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said that they could not be entirely sure as to the reason why there was this difference in initiating the weight loss conversation, but in fact if you think about it and use your common sense it is pretty obvious!

Basically, if you are more overweight then your patient you look a bit stupid trying to preach healthy diet and exercise when it is pretty damn obvious that you do not walk your talk!! Any overweight doctor who tried to put on a serious face and warn his patients about obesity related diseases would look like he was trying to pull some sort of comedy sketch.

In fact, there is a problem in many developed countries with doctors of all sizes bringing up obesity with their patients because they are worried that they might offend them. Different surveys have shown that even normal weight doctors often leave out the subject of obesity despite the fact that the patient’s complaint is directly linked to it.

For example if an obese patient is complaining of sore joints, the doctor should really get to the root of the cause which is the obesity, but often they just skirt around the issue and prescribe painkillers and other medications.

Doctors should take into account that if they are overweight they are likely to look unprofessional and their patients may lose confidence in them.