Obesity guidebook available
A new guidebook is now available to help health care professionals counsel overweight and obese patients. The 78-page booklet is published by the Bethesda, MD-based National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s (NHLBI) Obesity Education Initiative. The Practical Guide to the Identification, Evaluation and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults is an abbreviated version of the NHLBI’s Clinical Guidelines on Overweight and Obesity published three years ago. Tools in the booklet cover these topics:
- treatment algorithm;
- suggested ways to talk to patients about dietary changes;
- reduced calorie menus that take into account ethnic diversity;
- ways to prepare food at home;
- how to select food items at a restaurant.
The guide also contains motivational forms, such as ways to record physical activity and weight so patients can track their success and be encouraged, as well as ways to monitor and modify weight-related behavior. There are diaries for food intake and exercise, cues of satiety for patients, ways to reward successes, and information on how to set appropriate weight-loss goals based on NHLBI recommendations for a weight loss of no more than one to two pounds a week and a target of a 10% change in body weight over a six-month period.
The guide also contains a reference tool that includes several ways to assess patients’ weight-related risk factors:
- body-mass index;
- waist circumference;
- comorbidities, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
The guide is available on NHLBI’s web site: www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/obesity/practgde.htm.
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