For primary care physicians, who in today's managed care environment may be under pressure to see increasingly greater numbers of patients, it is still necessary to take the time and learn as much about the patients and their families as is necessary, Scherger said. Stanley Hertz, M.D., a psychiatrist and director of the eating disorders center at Schneider Children's Hospital, Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York, agrees that treating childhood obesity is a family matter. And when the child's caregivers are obese, treatment is less likely to work unless everyone adopts a program of good nutrition and exercise, though pragmatism sometimes outweighs psychology or family dynamics. Meanwhile, the debate within the medical community continues over whether obesity is a disease, merely symptomatic of a disease, or evidence of sheer excess instigated by an American culture free of want. Countless numbers of our daughters and increasingly many of our sons are suffering immeasurable torment in fruitless weight-loss schemes and scams, and some are losing their lives.
Doctors can help the public regain a sense of proportion.
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