Have medical professionals ever commented on your weight or offered treatment?

[MoneyJo]

After reading on another thread that one poster was offered help at a BMI of 30 (I think) but not when it was much higher, it made me wonder if anyone on here was ever spoken to by their doctor or another medical professional about their weight, ever?

My weight has crept up over the last 20 years since having my eldest, and my BMI at its highest was 44. Nobody ever commented. My GP once added into the end of an appointment for something else that people who do 20 mins a day exercise add years to their life, but that was it.

A couple of years ago (when my weight was it its highest) I was invited for a health check - bloods, weight etc. I said to the nurse then that I knew my weight was unhealthy and she just said something like we are all a bit overweight these days.

I'm not sure how much it would have changed anything but it makes me wonder if anyone else has ever been challenged.

I've been spoken to by a nurse when I was bmi 23 and actively losing weight and she said I don't need to lose more and just to do body toning and weights to tone up. I then mentioned due to my ethnicity I need to be under bmi 23 to be normal and mentioned all my health conditions and she said to take it with a pinch of salt. Yet conversely no-one even mentioned I was obese bmi 32.8 with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and prediabetic at my nhs health heart check review even though I'd never had any of these conditions before, I was overweight in the past not obese. I found out myself about all thos 6 months 1.5 years later when I changed GP and it was on my new app. By then I'd started weight loss injections myself thankfully which resolved all these conditions.

Pretty scary that you had those conditions and yet nobody said anything, @Mysticmaiden

Definitely and my new GP didn't understand the inaction as they said the UK has a pre-diabetes plan where they help patients through education and support to be healthier and lose weight etc. My manager is under a plan and regularly attending weight check ins and online lessons and her blood sugar levels are lower than mine were. I was never treated for high BP which was 145/92 and ended up in hospital due to my symptoms not sure what was going on with me. I would recommend mounjaro if you are researching weight loss injections, within 2 weeks my BP dropped to 107/72.

I have annual contact with my GP for blood pressure medication reviews, but they don’t actually see me in person unless my BP is very high on my home BP readings. It normally isn’t. My GP had no idea what my BMI or weight was as they never ask as part of that check. It’s all done by text, web and phone call if necessary. The only time I was asked about my weight was during the annual check in 2024 when I had already started Mounjaro privately. The pharmacist saw the private prescription on my record and asked me about it. I then told her my weight at that point and how much I’d lost already. When I had the text in 2025 asking for me to submit BP readings they again didn’t ask me for my weight and they have no idea that I am now a healthy weight. My blood tests as part of that annual check have always been normal, somehow. Despite having a BMI in the morbidly obese range for years I have avoided becoming pre diabetic or having high cholesterol or signs of fatty liver.

Years ago when my BMI was 39 a GP said there was a possibility I could access weight loss surgery, but that wasn’t a route I wanted to go down. I had support from the surgery nurse to lose weight though calorie counting and exercise, and managed to get my BMI down to about 27, but the weight has crept back on and my BMI is back to being around 30/31 now, so going down the WLI route privately.

Yes I’ve been told to “lose a few kilos” definitely by
one GP, possibly a second but can’t quite
recall now exactly how that conversation went. BMI 26-27 at the time.

it's difficult for hcp's
some patients react badly to be told their weight negatively affects their health. (many threads on here about that)

so I'm not surprised drs have moved away from that.

It was always, gently and kindly, mentioned back in the mists of time when GPs saw patients in my area. No support, advice or pathways ever offered. I haven’t been weighed in years, despite it being a condition of my HRT prescription that it happens annually.
I am now a healthy weight thanks to Mounjaro and the surgery have no idea and presumably, care not.

Conversely, every HCP I have talked to (in private settings, as it has to be) are wildly enthusiastic and encouraging. I’d like to think that the NHS would be too, if and when they see me in the future.

I had it mentioned at contraception appts, fertility appts, endometriosis and pcos appts, broken foot appts. I was 10stone at the time.

Now that I’m menopausal I’m 12 stone and nobody mentions weight anymore.

Well, if as is often said on here that there is no need to mention someone's weight to them as 'they know they are fat' then why would anyone put their head above the parapet.
If you know you're an unhealthy weight then ask for support if you want it.

My dm's gp told her better to be overweight than smoke when she cited weight gain as an excuse to not give up smoking.

They seem less interested now. I had some weight monitoring via my practice nurse for a while, getting on for 20 years ago, and they also referred me to a nurtritionist, which wasn’t much use. She showed me the healthy plate thing. And I remember a very unpleasant doctor at a family planning clinic chastising me about my weight when I was on the pill. My BMI was about 34 at the time, I think. And when I told him I had lost a few kgs (which I had), he snapped at me that it wasn’t enough. He was the very opposite of encouraging.

Funnily enough, my current practice don’t seem that bothered - or there’s been a change in approach and philosophy. I had some blood pressure checks a couple of years ago, and although my BMI was around 40, the nurse didn’t mention my weight, diet or exercise at all.

I think they are between a bit of a rock and a hard place and until recently there hasn’t been much by way of effective interventions except lifestyle advice (difficult to proactively manage from the HCP point of view) and bariatric surgery (only for the most severe cases).

It should be like drinking or smoking. Something that health professionals are encouraged to advise about.

However most people take very badly indeed to it being mentioned. Lots of people saying their weight was blamed when they had gone about something else and getting upset at that (although very rarely would it be wholly unrelated and in any case if we took a health promotion approach it would be legitimate to mention it).

Post GLP1s there are a lot more people who have achieved significant weight loss and are evangelical about the benefits. Pre GLP1s and for those unable to qualify or afford them I think diet and lifestyle advice usually goes down like a bucket of cold sick. That’s why Drs and nurses don’t mention it although it is a huge risk to health.

I think that the comment about “no need to mention” because people already know is about people other than doctors or HCPs in charge of your treatment though. Weight is very closely related to high BP and I do find it curious that my GP surgery is so utterly uninterested in what I weigh. But certainly there is no need to mention my weight if I ever turn up for an appointment about something that’s nothing to do with obesity.

Most people on this thread seem to want HCPs to be interested and give them a pat on the back now that they have lost weight with privately funded injections. Being honest would you actually have welcomed advice to lose weight prior to being successful/ having that option? I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t.

@Shrinkhole I don’t think anyone on this thread has expressed that viewpoint?

huh? Not one person wrote that,

Op yes I’ve had it mentioned.

when I was a new mum I was exhausted and I recall at a gp visit due to something else I commented I was exhausted, the rather ancient gp told me I had to get that weight off and I’d be fine. I was bmi 25. I was really stunned.

before I went on the med, yes, it was mentioned, I had very high blood pressure, bmi 32, and the doctor weighed me, as the weight in my records was as it is now back to at a bmi of 20. I asked if the weight was likely causing my bp issues and she said yes it was possible , she was right.

After it became apparent I couldn’t get the weight off myself and my bp kept raising, I asked her opinion of mounjaro, She was fully supportive and she wasn’t able to prescribe, due to nhs restrictions, told me to buy from a reputable pharmacy, but she’d seen fabulous results with diabetes patients, ( I wasn’t diabetic) and felt ghey may help me, so yes, in her view it was absolutely worth trying.

she was also right on this, in the end said I was the poster child for them due to all the health improvements I’d seen.

I’m very thankful to her; she also monitored me throughout ghe weight loss phase as she had to manage my blood pressure and said that as much as they were not supposed to get involved with weight loss injections, she felt the suggestion was awful as I was her patient and she was responsible for my overall care.

I have never seen a GP or consultant who didn't suggest I loose a bit of weight. Ive never been over a bmi of 27.

Yes I have. By the occupational health nurse at work who suggested I should lose some weight every time I saw her. And then a few years ago by the GP who told me I’d put on weight & need to lose it. The midwife also brought it up during both pregnancies.

I was just about to say the same thing.

I think you've misread the thread.

I would have welcomed something that would actually have helped. I wouldn't have welcomed someone telling me to lose weight, just eat less and move more, because as many of us on WLIs have learnt, it is much more than that.

But nothing would help as people on WLI are always saying so why do you want HCPs to mention it and just get a lot of angry people? We are incentivised to mention stopping smoking and reducing alcohol but I guess there are some effective interventions for the smoking at least. For weight loss not so much and as you have already said it just gets peoples backs up so we are afraid to say anything.

I was advised to low carb. Bmi 26. It made naff all difference. I'm veggie and most veggie protein is high carb...

Indeed. Posters would be kicking off saying their doctor was being mean and judgemental and Mumsnetters would be urging them to complain to the practice manager or PALS.

I suppose medical professionals work on the basis that their patients are neither blind nor stupid and know they’re overweight without being reminded.

I was told at a medical appointment NOT to lose weight. BMI was about 30. There are issues regarding outcome for a medical condition I have that means there is an advantage to having a somewhat higher weight. I found it really hard to gear myself to lose weight after that.