Most People May Not be Able to Recognise Obesity

A recent research reveals that most of us including doctors and general practitioners may fail to distinguish healthy weight from obesity just by looking at a person. Researchers from the University of Liverpool asked participants to look at photographs of male models and categorize whether they were healthy, overweight or obese according to World Health Organisation's Body Mass Index guidelines.Interestingly, it was found that most of the participants were unable to correctly identify whether the person was healthy, overweight or obese. In a similar study, it was seen that general practitioners and trainee GPs were unable to visually identify if a person was obese or overweight."We wanted to find out if people can identify a healthy, overweight or obese person just by looking at them," said Dr Eric Robinson, who conducted the research. "Primarily we found that people were often very inaccurate and this included trainee doctors and qualified doctors too. Moreover, we found that participants systematically underestimated when a person was overweight or obese," he added.Researchers tried to analyze the link between a person's weight and his/her ability to estimate the weight of another person. As a result, it was found that exposure to heavier body weights may influence what people see as normal and healthy weight. This  may cause people to underestimate a person's weight. Recent studies have found that parents underestimate their overweight or obese child's weight and this could also act as a barrier to intervention."Our study of GPs also found a tendency to underestimate weight which has important implications as it means that overweight and obese patients could end up not being offered weight management support or advice. Over the last 30 years we have seen changes to population body weight, so examining how this has affected how we view our own and other people's body sizes is an interesting area of research." Robinson concludes. Inputs from PTI