Overweight ‘visit GPs more often’

Overweight people visit their GPs more often than those who are of a normal weight, a study has shown, suggesting that they suffer from more health complaints.

Researchers from the School for Public Health and Primary Care at Maastricht University in the Netherlands set out to examine the effect of lifestyle on attendance rates at doctors’ surgeries.

They found that a higher body mass index was related to an increased attendance rate in both male and female patients, which could persuade people to start exercising to lose weight.

However, the researchers also found that lifestyles were not related to the attendance rate, apart from women who led sedentary lifestyles.

“In order to relieve the GPs, nurse practitioners could play a more prominent role in lifestyle interventions concerning overweight and obesity and its related diseases,” the study authors concluded.

Recent research from Mintel revealed that almost a quarter of women in the UK are plus-size and wear clothes in size 18 or over, which suggests that fewer women are dieting or exercising to lose weight.

How much weight are you hoping to lose and how are you going about it?