Fighting obesity: Programme to fight obesity in primary care already exists

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7456.53-b

BMJ 2004;329:53 (3 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7456.53-b

Letter

Fighting obesity

Programme to fight obesity in primary care already exists

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Jain cites the lack of existing data on the effectivenessof public health initiatives in her editorial on the recentreport on obesity issued by the UK House of Commons Health Committee.¹She did not take note of the report's findings on the CounterweightProgramme (paragraph 350, pp 90-1),² which has already provedto be effective in tackling obesity in general practice andprovides more evidence of successful public health initiativesin primary care.

The Counterweight Programme, developed by seven obesity specialistsand supported by the National Obesity Forum, is the largestworldwide primary care programme with 120 000 patients reviewed.Results show that the incidence of type 2 diabetes can be reducedby 50% as a result of appropriate weight management in the NHS.³

Counterweight is a dietetic trained nurse led intervention programmein 80 general practices in seven regions of the United Kingdom:Aberdeen, Bath, . . . [Full text of this article]

John Broom, chair, Counterweight Programme

Robert Gordon University, School of Life Sciences, Aberdeen AB25 1HG ext.broom@rgu.ac.uk

David Haslam, president

National Obesity Forum, PO Box 6625, Nottingham NG2 5PA On behalf of the Counterweight Programme and National Obesity Forum