The high prevalence of obesity across the lifecourse demands a portfolio of strategies to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. Population strategies for early prevention are vital but in many countries there are clear barriers to the implementation of the interventions which research suggests may be most effective, such as controls on price or availability. Moreover these preventative interventions may be insufficient for individuals who are already overweight.
The scale and reach of primary care services makes this an obvious setting to deliver individual-level interventions to treat obesity. In the field of tobacco control, interventions by health professionals to support individuals to stop smoking have been an important component of the overall policy mix. However in order to fit within the resource constraints of the service there is a need to identify and implement effective interventions which can be delivered cheaply and at scale, in routine practice by non-specialist staff. The challenge this presents means that treating obesity is often not given the priority it deserves.
This presentation will summarise evidence which demonstrates the clinical and cost effectiveness of behavioural weight management programmes to treat obesity in adults, focusing on our recent systematic reviews and data from new trials directly relevant to the primary care setting. It will include emerging research to address the reticence of many family doctors to raise the issue of excess weight which is crucial to overcome in order to embed weight management interventions as an integral part of routine primary care.