Can a Scale Solve Teen Obesity? Not So Fast
Obesity Experts Debate Findings of New Study
Change on a Larger Scale
Despite the findings of the study, there's disagreement among medical experts on the use of the bathroom scale in treating obesity.
Dr. Paul Shekelle, director of the RAND Corporation's Southern California Evidence-Based Practice Center, says that a population-level approach to fighting obesity, rather than one that targets individual patients, will be critical to reversing the trend.
"It's making the stairs easier to take and the elevator harder to take," he says. "It's more public parkways, city redesign."
Shekelle points to interventions that have helped reduce smoking rates, such as raising cigarette taxes, as useful models. "We have to change the social norms in order to have much success."
Based on the results of the new study, he would not recommend that everyone go out and buy a bathroom scale.
"Could [self-weighing] help? Yeah," he says. "Do I think a national public service campaign [trying to convince] everyone to weigh themselves once a day is going to help? No."
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