TOS s Best Practices in Obesity Management

Obesity is a chronic, progressive, and relapsing disease with a distinct pathophysiology that contributes to cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic risk factors, disease, and complications. Obesity is increasingly prevalent in the United States, but clinicians in the primary care setting can reduce the burden of obesity and obesity-related complications by appropriately initiating obesity management interventions for their patients. Underlying biases reflecting societal stigma toward people affected by obesity contribute toward a tendency to avoid discussing overweight and obesity in clinical practice. In fact, many clinicians do not believe they have a responsibility to support their patient s weight loss efforts. Whether clinician biases are explicit or implicit, they may be reduced by improved recognition of the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying obesity. Each clinical encounter provides clinicians with an opportunity to identify individuals with obesity, advise on its risk, and assess readiness to engage in obesity management interventions. However, obesity remains significantly underdiagnosed and undertreated, with many clinicians citing lack of time and competing healthcare priorities as reasons for not addressing weight management. Furthermore, many clinicians are not confident in their ability to implement nutrition and physical activity counseling, behavioral intervention, and obesity medications.