August 30, 2000

Audio Researcher Joe Donnelly Obesity conference For more information contact Kim Johnson at KU's Department of Health, Sport and Exercise Sciences at (785) 864-0797, or University of Kansas, 104 Robinson Center, Lawrence KS 66045. A complete brochure is available online More articles Obesity misunderstood as lack of control Is obesity a disease? Body Mass Index Subscribe now to receive KU News by email

Contact: Kim Johnson, KU's Department of Health, Sport and Exercise Sciences, (785) 864-0797

Even your doctor won't tell you 'You're overweight'

LAWRENCE - Sometimes even your doctor won't tell you that you're overweight.

There are lots of reasons doctors and health professionals are reluctant to talk about weight management with their patients, and one of them is fear of insulting a patient, says Joseph E. Donnelly, exercise physiologist at the University of Kansas.

To encourage more treatment of obesity, KU is offering its second annual conference on the prevention and treatment of obesity, Sept. 29 and 30 at the St. Luke's Hospital Spencer Center for Education, 44th and Wornall Road, Kansas City, Mo.

Donnelly is bringing top researchers in the field of weight loss and weight management to meet with area physicians, nurses, nutritionists, psychologists and other health professionals. More than 200 attended the first year.

Federal health guidelines indicate that one-third to one-half of Americans are either overweight or obese, Donnelly says, who has researched obesity for more than 20 years.

Few of those people have doctors who will tell them "You're overweight. Here are you options," Donnelly says.

Why not?

Donnelly says reasons commonly listed by physicians for not treating obesity reveal a sense of helplessness:
- Fear of insulting a patient by stating the fact, "You're overweight."
- Obesity isn't covered in medical training.
- Many physicians are overweight themselves and are reluctant to treat a condition they aren't able to change for themselves.
- No money in it; insurance companies don't cover obesity treatment.
- Successful weight loss is a difficult procedure.
- Perceptions that weight loss is a matter of self-control and that a patient doesn't really need a doctor to lose weight.
- Lack of professional help. Weight control requires a multidisciplinary team and many physicians don't have a clinic staffed with a psychologist, nutritionist and an exercise physiologist.

Researchers now understand that obesity results not from willful overeating and laziness, but a combination of complex factors - genetic, metabolic, behavioral and environmental. The KU conference will offer health professionals examples of how to apply research for treating and preventing obesity as well as how to make it affordable.

Conference speakers will include
- L. Arthur Campfield, director of the University of Colorado's Center for Human Nutrition at Denver, and Robert Eckel, University of Colorado physician, Denver, debating "Is obesity a disease?"
- Dr. John Foreyt, professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, offering insights for state-of-the-art behavioral strategies for weight loss.
- Steve Blair, director of research at the Cooper Institute in Dallas and senior author of the Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity, reporting on physical activity in weight loss and weight maintenance.

Foreyt's books include "Living Without Dieting: A Revolutionary Guide for Everyone Who Wants to Lose Weight" and "The Xenical Advantage." Blair is one of the authors of "Fitness after 50: It's Never Too Late to Start" and the "The Lifestyle Counselor's Guide to Weight Control."