Obese visit GP more often than smokers, researchers say

Wasting resources with each trip.

Overweight people are more likely to make frequent trips to their GP than smokers or those who are generally unfit, say Dutch researchers.

The findings cannot be explained by overweight people having a higher risk of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, the analysis showed.

Rising rates of obesity means nurses may have to take some of the pressure off doctors, they said.

The research is published in Family Practice.

The team from Maastricht University looked at GP data from almost 4,500 adults.

Participants also filled in a questionnaire designed to find out about their lifestyles, such as their diet, whether they smoked, how much they drank and how much exercise they did.

They expected to find that the most unhealthy or unfit people would visit their GP more often.

But of the lifestyle factors looked at, only body mass index (BMI) was independently associated with frequent visits to the doctor.

The finding was true of both men and women and was not accounted for by higher rates of chronic illness.

Minor complaints

Although the researchers could not conclude from the study why overweight people may visit their GP more often, they speculated they may have more minor complaints, such as sleep problems or musculoskeletal pain.

And they remain fat.