Obesity update

NHS Evidence's Public Health specialist library offers its annual evidence update on childhood obesity, a very useful survey of contributions to the sum of knowledge on the subject over the past year. A study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology confirms the relationship between lower educational attainment and likelihood of being overweight or obese. Researchers looked at self-reports from national health surveys covering 19 countries in Europe. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, a study tests the impact of negative attitudes to obesity amongst clinicians and concerns about lack of respect amongst obese patients. The study, which looked at samples of patients from the Medicaid and VHA populations in the US, found no evidence of reduced quality of care and that "being obese or overweight was associated with a marginally higher rate of recommended care on several measures."