meFor example, if you've been to the doctor for a sprained ankle or UTI, but have had a conversation about your weight before receiving treatment recommendations, you might be wondering what exactly doctors learn about obesity in medical school.
After all, obesity is incredibly common. According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), 42% of American adults are obese.
And this is generally considered an important health indicator. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), obesity is linked to serious chronic diseases, including certain cancers, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease, that lead to premature and preventable deaths. .
In other words, weight is just one metric. Having obesity ~ no Being underweight automatically means you are in poor health, just as being underweight doesn't mean you are healthy. In fact, health indicators other than weight can often tell you more about your overall health.
The causes of obesity are complex and often beyond a person's control. What you eat plays a role, but genetics, sleep habits, physical activity, and social determinants of health (also known as non-medical factors) also play a role. According to the CDC, factors that affect people's health include economic policies, racial discrimination, and climate change.
And treating obesity, which often boils down to eating less and moving more, is incredibly difficult and often requires a lifestyle overhaul or medication for long-term success.
Given the epidemic of obesity and its serious health consequences, it seems right that obesity should be a major topic in medical schools. However, medical fatphobia and prejudice against obesity are not uncommon, with language blaming obese people in ways that typically do not occur for other health conditions.
For our Real Talk Rx series, we asked readers to send us their biggest health questions and then posed the most common questions to a panel of doctors. Many readers have wondered how much of a doctor's medical training is devoted to the specific needs of obese people, and what exactly they are taught about it. Here's what the experts said:
How much do doctors learn about obesity in medical school?
“As someone who graduated from medical school and served as a medical school professor for several years, I can tell you that there is more work to be done in medical education on obesity.
From my personal experience while attending medical school, it seems that there is an unconscious and implicit prejudice or stigma attached to obesity. Part of that is because the research on obesity is not as complete as the research on other diseases we learn about in medical school.
Some argue that the reason obesity research is not very active is because of the stigma that obesity is a personal failure or a personal decision. We've known for a long time that that's not true. Now research is catching up and proving this. Personally I love [helping patients with] But a lot of what I learned about weight management I learned after medical school.
I don't think medical training defines obesity. I don't think it begins to question the kinds of social nuances and social determinants of health that influence obesity. Now that it's time to catch up, I'm excited to see where medical education will take me in the future.
It's really hard to break the stigma that eating one way or another is a personal choice. Because, to some extent, people are putting food into their mouths. But that doesn't explain what types of food are available in their environment. It doesn't account for what foods they can afford or what foods are culturally significant to them, nor what kind of advertising for those foods they are inundated with 24/7.
We are learning more and more about how the endocrine system changes when a person begins to gain weight. And as these changes progress, changing your weight becomes more difficult. It's a vicious cycle. The more we learn about the mechanisms of obesity, the more it appears that it is not a social or individual problem. “I hope it helps people understand more about the scientific problem that it really is.”
“I don't think medical training defines obesity. I don't think it begins to question the social nuances and social determinants of health that contribute to obesity. I'm excited to see where medical education goes in the future, because it's time to catch up. .” —Alexa Mieses Malchuk, MD
“I don't think there's anything lacking. In medical school, you learn everything about obesity, especially since you're trained to serve in the United States. We learn everything from a psychosocial perspective to a physiological perspective to a pathophysiological perspective on obesity. It explains what obesity entails, where it comes from, cultural perspectives, how it develops, what effects it has on the body, and more.
BMI is a standardized way to classify people, but we are moving away from this category because it creates anxiety in our goal-oriented society. There are many demographic factors that go into determining BMI, including race, geographic location, and lifestyle.
BMI on its own is not a good indicator of health. These include cholesterol levels, triglyceride levels, etc. [other] “The parameters we look at provide a snapshot of the internal environment.”
“The standard medical curriculum reviews the causes of obesity, the treatment of obesity, and the complications resulting from obesity. So we have a fairly comprehensive understanding of the risks and ways to treat obesity. This is included as part of comprehensive education on other health issues. .
Most medical school curricula teach students how to interact with compassion and treat individuals rather than diseases. But I would say that the American healthcare system really needs better education about nutrition and healthy lifestyles. “We do a lot of education on how to treat the complications of obesity, but we don’t do much to educate doctors and patients about how to prevent obesity.”
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Our experts agree: In medical school, future doctors learn about obesity, including its causes, risk factors, and treatment options. However, some of the doctors we interviewed felt that more could be done to not only prioritize obesity prevention but also provide non-judgmental care that is free of bias and recognizes that a person's weight is not solely a result of their own choices.
Are you confused about your health? Get answers to more common questions in our Real Talk Rx series.