Most people, including GPs, cannot visually identify if a person is a healthy weight, overweight or obese, a new UK study has found.

A number of studies worldwide, including in Ireland, have suggested that people are increasingly unable to recognise overweight in other people. A report by Safefood last year even found that when it came to overweight children, many Irish parents were in denial or were simply unaware that this was an issue for their child.

This latest study involved psychologists from the University of Liverpool asking people to look at photographs of male models and state whether they were a healthy weight, overweight or obese according to body mass index (BMI) guidelines.

BMI uses a person's height and weight as a means of assessing whether their weight may be posing a risk to their health.

The study found that most of the participants were unable to correctly identify if a person was a healthy weight, overweight or obese. In fact, they mostly underestimated weight, believing that those who were actually overweight were a healthy weight.

The psychologists carried out a similar experiment with GPs and trainee GPs and found that they too were largely unable to visually identify if a person was overweight.

The study noted that being exposed to heavier people on a regular basis may influence what people see as ‘normal'.

"We wanted to find out if people can identify a healthy, overweight or obese person just by looking at them. Primarily we found that people were often very inaccurate and this included trainee doctors and qualified doctors too. Moreover, we found that participants systematically underestimated when a person was overweight or obese," explained lead researcher, Dr Eric Robinson.

He pointed out that as many GPs tended to underestimate weight, this could have important implications ‘as it means that overweight and obese patients could end up not being offered weight management support or advice'.

Details of these findings were presented at the UK Congress of Obesity and the GP study results were published in the British Journal of General Practice.

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