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Obesity - Management
How should I assess a person's readiness to lose weight?

  • Determine if the person wants to lose weight at the present time.
  • Questions which may help to clarify a person's readiness to lose weight include:
    • Are you concerned about your weight?
    • How important is it for you to lose weight at the moment?
    • Do you believe that you could lose weight?
    • What would have to change in your life for you to be able to tackle your weight?
    • Is your weight affecting your life in any way at the moment?
  • Explore barriers to lifestyle change, for example:
    • Lack of knowledge about food, and how diet and exercise affect health.
    • Cost and availability of healthy foods and opportunity for exercise.
    • Safety concerns.
    • Lack of time.
    • Personal tastes.
    • Views of family and community members.
    • Low levels of fitness, or disability.
    • Low self-esteem and lack of assertiveness.
Clarification / Additional information
  • Motivation depends on the person accepting that obesity is a medical disorder.
  • It is estimated that less than one in five people are motivated to accept treatment to lose weight.
  • Encourage motivation by offering support, encouragement, and follow up from a weight management team.

[Haslam and James, 2005]

Basis for recommendation
  • This recommendation is based on guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence on the prevention, identification, and management of overweight and obesity in adults and children [NICE, 2006b], the care pathway for the management of overweight and obesity from the Department of Health [DH, 2006a], and a review published in the Lancet [Haslam and James, 2005].

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