Weight-Loss Counseling: Is Race A Factor?
Most people know that the U.S. is struggling to contain a surging epidemic of obesity, and that the problem is most acute among African-Americans. Whereas about 27 percent of all adult Americans are obese (defined as having a body mass index of 30 or more), fully 37 percent of African-American adults are obese, and that number jumps to an appalling 42 percent among African-American women.
Over the years, public health officials have provided evidence that socioeconomic and cultural factors drive this racial disparity. Now, a new study suggests there is another reason as well: Obese African-Americans receive less obesity-related counseling than their white counterparts, and it matters not whether the physicians they see are African-American or white.
To reach these conclusions, Sara Bleich and colleagues from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health used clinical encounter data from the 2005–2007 National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys (NAMCS). The sample included 2,231 visits involving African-American and white obese people who were at least 20 years old and who visited family practitioners and internists that were either African-American or white. Asian and Hispanic patients and physicians were excluded from the study because their numbers were too small to permit hypothesis testing.
For each encounter in the study, the scientists determined whether the patient received guidance on weight reduction, diet and nutrition, or exercise from his or her physician. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*
I often encounter denial even when it comes to simple things, like body weight. You would think that the question of how many Americans are overweight or obese would be fairly straightforward, but no data is so straightforward that it cannot be distorted by dedicated ideologues. 
