Time to tackle obesity

Obesity has been described by the WHO as a global epidemic. Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) > or = 30 kg/m2 and it is estimated that almost a quarter of the population of England are obese. Lighten Up was a randomised controlled trial that studied 740 obese or overweight men and women identified from GP records in a primary care trust in Birmingham. The study compared a range of commercial or primary care led weight reduction programmes with minimal intervention control for weight loss in obesity. The commercial weight management programmes were more effective and cheaper than the primary care based services studied. The authors calculated that patients lost an average of 1.3 kg/m2 with the most effective intervention which if maintained gives a crude cost per life year saved of 77 pound sterling. This would indicate that providing commercial weight loss programmes as an NHS funded service is a potentially cost-effective intervention.