This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
30-second advice encourages weight loss
Researchers from the University of Oxford have claimed that doctors who spend 30 seconds telling patients they need to lose weight can have a dramatic impact.
The findings of their study, published in the Lancet, showed that patients were not offended by the advice and that some people lost 10 per cent of their body weight after being offered a free weight-loss programme.
The research states that a ‘behaviourally-informed, very brief, physician-delivered opportunistic intervention is acceptable to patients and an effective way to reduce population mean weight’.
2,728 severely overweight people became involved in the trial following a quick intervention from their doctor, who they were seeing in relation to a separate condition. Half were offered a free place on a weight-loss programme like Weight Watchers or Rosemary Conley.
A quarter of patients initially offered a place lost five per cent of their original weight and around one-tenth had lost 10 per cent of their weight after a year. Their overall weight loss averaged 2.4kg (5.3lb).
Professor Paul Aveyard, from the University of Oxford, told the BBC News website: "The impact is pretty substantial given the effort - 30 seconds - that went into it. If we were year-on-year to knock 2.4kg off the heaviest people in society then that would have a very big effect in health terms.
"This should be added into the repertoire of things we all attend to in appointments like flu jabs, blood pressure and stopping smoking."
Dr Imran Rafi, from the Royal College of GPs, also commented: "Levels of obesity are a growing concern in the UK and can lead to a number of debilitating and serious conditions. If this scheme is low-cost and effective, which this research claims it is, it makes sense to consider it on a wider scale.
"We must understand that while some patients in this study did benefit from a referral to a weight-loss programme, it won't work for everyone and shouldn't be considered as a blanket solution to curb growing levels of obesity."
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