51¶¯Âþ

Patients don’t trust fat doctors as much as their leaner colleagues. Robert Hash of Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and his colleagues discovered this when they surveyed more than 200 patients of five doctors, two of whom were obese. When asked how confident they were about the medical advice they received, patients of the plump doctors were significantly less impressed – even when the advice was about disease treatment rather than weight control (Preventive Medicine, vol 36, p 41). Hash says it’s time to hammer home the message to medical students – if you don’t look too healthy yourself, your patients might take your advice with a pinch of salt.