Kevin Gendreau, MD, a weight loss doctor at Southcoast Health in Fall River, Maine, lets patients know that he was once obese. He says this knowledge inspires and motivates them to lose weight.
Courtesy Dr. Kevin Gendreau
Dr. Kevin Gendreau, before and after losing 125 pounds in 18 months
After dropping 125 pounds over 18 months, “I can relate to their binges, hardships, and plateaus on a very personal level,” he says.
Peminda Cabandugama, MD, an endocrinologist and obesity medicine specialist at Truman Medical Center at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, has weighed between 180 and 240 pounds in the past decade. He now weighs 225 pounds and has a healthy lifestyle.
“I have had patients come to me saying, ‘I used to see a different weight loss doctor who was not heavy. But how can he understand what I’m going through?’” he says.
Dr. Cabandugama shares his weight loss struggles with patients “to dispel this myth that weight management is as simple as just eating too much and not exercising. It involves a smorgasbord of emotions and hormones, some within and outside of our control. I hope that sharing this allows me to connect more with my patients so that they know that even their health care professional goes through the same challenges that they do.”
“Patients are more likely to make behavior changes when doctors are supportive and have had similar experiences and talk about their stories,” says Wendy Bennett, MD, an obesity researcher and associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Do patients respect overweight doctors?
While Dr. Gendreau and Dr. Cabandugama have lost weight,
Doctors sometimes have biased attitudes toward overweight patients, but few studies have looked at whether patients have biases towards overweight doctors. The results vary and may depend on whether or not the patients are overweight.
A random online survey of 358 participants suggested that regardless of their own weight, people had biases about doctor weight gain. They viewed the overweight or obese doctors as less trustworthy and credible, which could lead the participants to reject their medical advice and change doctors.
“Patients expect doctors who are providing health care to be doing everything they can to take care of their own health and well-being,” says Pamela Peeke, MD, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of Maryland in Baltimore.
“I am a physician who believes you have to walk the talk — that the best teachers are those who live it,” she says.
Still, “I don’t think based on this one experimental study that we can conclude that overweight physicians are harming patients’ efforts to change their behavior,” notes Dr. Bennett, who was not involved in the study.
“I think that patients do often want to connect with their physicians on more personal levels, but without the story behind where the advice is coming from, patients may struggle to trust a provider who seems to be contradicting the messages,” she says.
A study that Dr. Bennett helped lead suggests that patients are not biased against overweight doctors if they themselves need to lose weight. A national survey of 600 overweight patients showed that 87% trusted diet advice from overweight primary care doctors, compared to 77% who trusted diet advice from doctors who had a healthy weight.
“This shows that patients were more trusting of physicians who are more like them, which can lead to better relationships. We know from the studies on race that patients are often more trusting of physicians from the same race as them,” says Dr. Bennett.
Dr. Gendreau says that when he was severely obese, some patients questioned whether to trust his weight loss advice.
“It was very awkward when they turned to me and said, ‘What about you?’ I would respond that it’s my job to inform them about the risks to their health,” he says.
Nearly half (48%) of doctors said they are trying to lose weight, according to the 2021 Medscape Physician Lifestyle and Happiness Report. As a result, many doctors may end up in the position of seemingly advising to “do what I say, not what I do.”
Nearly three in five Americans are trying to lose weight, according to Gelesis poll results released in December 2020.