Doctors Should Consider Six Subgroups When Treating Obesity: Study Suggests

A new study found that there is not just one way of treating obesity, but there are in fact six unique ways that looks into health, behavior, and demographic variables of individuals.

Researchers at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. say strategies tailored to the six groups would be a better use of billions spent each year on weight problems.

The study was led by Dr Green from the University's School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR). He said said: 'Policies designed to tackle obesity and encourage healthier lifestyles often target individuals just because they are obese. But a focus on just the group as a whole is not very efficient. We are all different and different health promotion approaches work for different people."

'Our research showed that those in the groups that we identified are likely to need very different services, and will respond very differently to different health promotion policies," he added.

The study outlined six groups of obese people, namely: the young, heavy drinking males; unhappy and anxious middle-aged individuals; older but happy people who are in not so good physically healthy; younger healthy females; older but financially blessed healthy adults; and, lastly, unhealthy individuals.

Alcohol reduction could be effective in tackling obesity in young adults, whereas middle-aged individuals who are unhappy and anxious could be treated with exercise combined with psycho-social counselling, another unexplored avenue, researchers suggest.

Researcher sourced their data from the Yorkshire Health study which comprises 4,144 obese people with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more.

More than one-third of U.S. adults, or 78.6 million people, are considered to be obese, according to the CDC.

For most adults, a BMI of 30 to 39.9 is considered obese. Anyone with a BMI of 40 or more is considered severely obese.