d healthWeight Loss

BY: Rajal Patel, MD WellcomeMD, Mooresville

THE PERCENTAGE OF AMERICANS who say they want to lose weight according to a recent Gallup poll is now up to 55 percent. And women are much more likely than men to say they want to lose weight, with three in ve expressing that desire. Despite the well wishes, we have gotten heavier in the past ve years, self-reporting an average weight increase of 5 pounds since the poll was last conducted in 2016.

It’s no surprise weight loss is top of mind for so many of us. Federal data says more than 40 percent of American adults are obese; another 30 percent are overweight. Obesity is linked to a couple of hundred diseases, including cancers, heart ailments, and kidney disease.

It's hard to nd reliable information on how many of us succeed in following through on those weight-loss goals, but there's unanimous agreement that it's far fewer than half. What have we gured out about how to keep our promises about weight loss and improve the odds that favor a longer and healthier life?

e medical journal Family Practice published a study just before Christmas that nails part of the problem: often, weight-loss advice from the family doctor is generic and ine ective. e ndings were that we general practitioners often "lack

(704) 842-3675 knowledge and con dence when giving advice for weight loss”; “mostly give generic advice, which patients report as unhelpful"; and “speci c weight-loss recommendations were rarely evidencebased." More guidance is needed for the family doctors giving weight-loss guidance, the study concluded. at's where you and your family doctor can have a really useful conversation about what we're eating and how we're moving, and set reasonable goals for improvement. Maybe that's already happening for you, and bravo!

And then, you may have heard about a couple of new obesity drugs originally developed for diabetics. ey're e ective for weight loss, and that's gratifying. ey come with a long list of potential side-e ects, some merely unpleasant, some much worse. And you have to take them for the rest of your life.

Zhaoping Li, a professor of medicine and chief of the division of clinical nutrition at the University of California at Los Angeles, told a reporter that the new drugs are useful tools but by no means e Answer. “I don’t want people to lose their attention on the fundamental issue — we really need to help each individual have the best lifestyle for their bodies and themselves,” Li said.

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