Doctors' Weight Matters

Pediatricians' Weight Could Be Obstacle To Treating Child Obesity

(AP) 
The North Carolina results suggest the challenges faced by pediatricians nationwide. About 15 percent of U.S. schoolchildren are estimated to be obese, and 30 percent are believed to be overweight.

The first study, which outlined the role of pediatricians' weight in managing obesity, was published earlier this year in the journal Obesity Research. The second study outlining pediatricians' confidence in managing obesity appeared in the May-June issue of Ambulatory Pediatrics.

Both were based on a mail survey of 738 pediatricians in North Carolina who belonged to both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the N.C. Pediatrics Society. The adjusted response rate was 71 percent.

The survey asked respondents to report their height, weight and whether they classified themselves as overweight, average or thin.

Physicians who viewed themselves as "thin" had more than five times the odds of finding obesity counseling "more difficult" compared with those of "average" weight. Pediatricians who perceived themselves as "overweight" were twice as likely to report problems, according to the study.

"I wonder if the patient's going to perceive me as someone who can help with this problem," said Perrin, who is not overweight. "I imagine them saying to themselves, 'OK, she's clearly very trim. What does she know about my struggles?"'

But Dr. Neil H. White, who has battled weight problems for the past 10 years, said his struggles have offered a way to connect with overweight patients. The pediatric endocrinologist with St. Louis Children's Hospital and Washington University in St. Louis has weighed as much as 240 pounds, but is down to 218 and hopes to reach 200.

"I think that doctors and health-care professionals who are overweight ... may be able to be more empathetic and less judgmental than health-care professionals who have never experienced obesity as a problem," White said.

"I use myself as an example as to why they need to do better.... I can say, 'I understand what you're going through."'