State of the Art Obesity Management - Keep It Away from Primary Care

In the course of the Population Health Blog's last primary care encounter, a measurement of its height and weight determined that it was overweight.  On the way to the examination room, the nurse apologetically provided a patient education leaflet. The physician let the topic go unmentioned.

These health care professionals clearly were not "into" managing weight issues in their patient population.

After reading this paper, who can blame them?  A review of fifteen randomized clinical trials involving over 4500 patients showed that while primary care-based "behavior change for weight loss" results in statistically significant weight loss, the average amount was a clinically insignificant 3 lbs.

While web sites such as this provide useful pointers on engaging patients on the topic of weight loss, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (PSPSTF) recommends that persons with obesity be referred to a care setting that specializes in intensive multi-component behavioral interventions.

The primary care PHB agrees: these frontline clinics can screen for obesity using height and weight, but that's where their responsibility arguably ends.  Until there is research that shows otherwise, the primary care setting is no place for management of weight issues.

The PHB's care was state-of-the-art.