They expect to get a prescription for medication. Unless there is a health risk and a long history of inability to lose weight, he asserted, there is no indication for medications as a first-line treatment. Physicians need to teach patients the realities of weight loss, he said, emphasizing the need to cut calories as well as increase physical activity. The first step for most people, he noted, is a good nutritional program. Physicians should tell patients how to count calories, choose the right foods, balance meals, and begin to exercise.
Most people can start by walking.
The physician also needs to be attentive to household dynamics, he noted. A family member who feels threatened by the weight loss of a spouse or child, for example, may sabotage that person's efforts to diet. Ads that appear in the media, he said, prompt many obese people to believe that if they lose weight, they will feel better. Physicians, he maintained, can help people understand that it's usually the other way around. This site is produced by The Journal of the American Medical Association .