Lose Weight Counseling

As more people adopts sedentary lifestyle there’s an increase in obesity, which in turn raises the risk of diseases like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, osteoarthritis, some cancers, physical and mental functioning decline resulting in increased rates of nursing home admissions, and premature death. The World Health Organization classifies about 400 million people around the world as obese. So losing weight is an important issue.

More and more studies suggest that counseling could help obese people losing weight. It is a potentially simple but effective tool in the fight against obesity. Unfortunately, research shows us that most physicians are not counseling their patients about losing weight or exercising. In 2003, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTC) released clinical guidelines recommending physicians provide weight loss counseling to their overweight and obese patients.

It is vital that patients are informed of how important losing weight is to maintain their good health. Introducing the subject of losing weight to a patient can be a sensitive issue — especially if patients are comfortable with their appearance and don't consider themselves as extremely overweight. Some patients may think that they have no control over their weight. They, for instance, may believe they are victims of their own genetics, when in fact other factors such as environment and behavior may also contribute to overweight and obesity.

Unrealistic ideas about how much weight they need to lose or what it takes to lose weight and keep it off may also inhibit the patients' motivation. Educate patients that even a moderate amount of weight loss (5% to 10%) along with moderate activity and a modified diet can significantly decrease health risks.

In counseling, patients can get good lifestyle advices that help them deal with their problems. The advice includes encouragement to keep fit, such as taking a walk at lunch and eating a healthy diet. It doesn’t entail any particular weight-loss target. This kind of counseling can bolster more aggressive weight-loss targets for overweight people.

Counseling could also be done by phone or e-mail. Some studies show that phone and e-mail counseling help people sustained their weight loss better than those who met face-to-face. A study, for example, shows that people on phone counseling lost 3.3 pounds more than those in the control group while people using email lost about a pound more. For some people talking to someone may make them feel a bit more pressured to make the change, while the key to lose weight is not to pressure people to make big changes.