Please stop trying to save me

As Ragen Chastain noted yesterday, "The American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, and the Obesity Society released new guidelines urging doctors to be “more aggressive” in urging fat patients to lose weight." Here are the guidelines(from Ragen's blog post linked above): At least once year, calculate patients’ BMI, measure their waists and tell them if they are overweight or obese.Develop a weight-loss plan that includes exercise and moderate calorie-cutting.Consider recommending weight-loss surgery for patients with a BMI of 40 or for those with a BMI of 35 who also have two other risk factors for heart disease such as diabetes or high blood pressure.Refer overweight and obese patients who are headed for heart problems to weight-loss programs. Specifically, discuss enrolling them in at least 14 face-to-face counseling sessions over six months with a registered dietitian, psychologist or other professional with training in weight management. For all the reasons Ragen cites, these guidelines are boggling, but as a therapist, I zero in particularly on the "14 face-to-face counseling sessions over six months". Such precision -- 14 sessions in 6 months -- how was that magic number arrived at? And since when has therapy or as they call it, counseling, been shown to be effective in producing or maintaining weight loss? All kinds of counselors and therapists that I know or have read about believe...
Source: Jung At Heart - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs