Impact of non-physician health professionals’ BMI on obesity care and beliefs

OBJECTIVE: Examine the impact of non-physician health professional body mass index (BMI) on obesity care, self-efficacy, and perceptions of patient trust in weight loss advice. DESIGN AND METHODS: We analyzed a national cross-sectional internet<based survey of 500 U.S. non-physician health professionals specializing in nutrition, nursing, behavioral/mental health, exercise, and pharmacy collected between January 20 and February 5, 2014. RESULTS: Normal BMI professionals were more likely than overweight/obese professionals to report success in helping patients achieve clinically significant weight loss (52% vs. 29%, p=0.01). We observed no differences by health professional BMI about the appropriate patient body weight for weight-related care (initiate weight loss discussions and success in helping patients lose weight), confidence in ability to help patients lose weight, or in perceived patient trust in their advice. Most health professionals (71%) do not feel successful in helping patients lose weight until they are morbidly obese, regardless of BMI. CONCLUSIONS: Normal BMI non-physician health professionals report being more successful than overweight and obese health professionals at helping obese patients lose weight. More research is needed to understand how to improve self-efficiency for delivering obesity care, particularly among overweight and class I obese patients.