Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: A key factor in the progressive increase in the prevalence of obesity is poor dietary habits. The treatment of obesity with regular diets often fail, so knowing the specific habits of these patients can be very useful to individualize treatment.

Objective: Evaluate the dietary habits of subjects consulting for obesity in our clinic of Endocrinology and Nutrition

Materials and methods: We conducted a survey of eating habits for overweight and obese patients (Brown et al., Castro et al.) in all patients who consulted for this reason during previous 2 months.We collected data on age, sex, cardiovascular risk factors, anthropometric (weight, height, BMI, waist circumference) and laboratory parameters.

Results: Data from 68 patients were collected. The mean age was 52.8±17.5 years, 34.4% males. 64.7% had diabetes, with a mean HbA1c of 7.52%, 50% were hypertensive and 58.8% dyslipidemic. Mean BMI at first visit was 39.77±5.45 and BMI at the time of the survey was 37.62±7.24 (66.7% between 25 and 40% and 33.3% over 40%). Mean weight: 112.0± 24.36 kg initially vs 105.1±21.77 kg finally, with a mean follow-up of 2.5±2.1 years. 81.3% had received dietary advice by a dietitian. 28.5% of patients responded correctly to more than 75% of questions, 39,% between 50 and 75% and 32.1% responded adequately to <50%. Subjectively, patients thought their diet was poor, fair, good, very good and excellent in 3.6, 53.6, 32.1, 10.7 and 0% respectively. There was a significant association between subjective scores and dietary questionnaire, so that subjects who responded appropriately to more than 75% felt that their diet was poor, fair, good or very good in 0, 25, 50 and 25% of cases and subjects who responded correctly to <50% of questionnaire felt that their diet was poor in 11.1%, fair in 77.8% and good in 11.1% (P 0.007). Presence of adequate habits (over 75% correctly responses) was significantly associated with instruction by the dietitian (34.8% in instructed vs 0% in subjects not instructed, P 0.047) but there was no association to any other features studied: BMI (22.2% in morbid vs 23.5% in no morbid obese), sex (35.3% in women vs 18.2% in men), age (31.6% in >40 years vs 22.2% in <40 years), diabetes (25% in diabetics vs 33.3% in non-diabetics), hypertension (35.7 vs 21.4%) or dyslipidemia (28.6 vs 28.6%)

Conclusions: Although dietary education improves eating habits of obese patients, a high percentage remain with inadequate dietetic costums, which could be a key factor in the failure of obesity treatment.