Informatics and Weight Loss

Playing basketball in High School, I came down hard and fractured my left wrist. There is nothing remarkable about this experience, the bone was set, I had a cast for about 6 weeks, it came off and after a few days of squeezing a tennis ball, all was good. My wrist was fixed, once and for all., one and done, you might say.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that a similar clinical approach is often applied to weight management, with multiple 6 week "get in shape" approaches from which to choose. Isn't obesity a chronic disease state requiring a long term solution? As an Economist and an RN, this strikes me as odd. Over 108 million Americans, according to Forbes Magazine, go on a diet every year, often 4 to 5 times each year, something seems to be amiss here. We wouldn't expect a Diabetic to test their blood sugar once a week, or expect our daughters to glance at their speedometer once a week, why we we ask people to only weigh-in once a week.

According to Gallop, each of us are exposed to 8, commercials or adds per day for food, 5 of which are for fast food. If you weigh in once a week, you will have seen 126 impressions telling you to eat this or that, and only one (your scale) suggesting that you don't. Face it, we're out numbered and out spent. Clinical Informatics has a role here, information is a powerful motivator, but it has to be Accurate, Relevant, Trustworthy and Timely; three out of four is just noise. For weight management, timely is critical and often missing. //Tom