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4. The Role of Veterinarians
According to the Veterinary Oath, veterinarians have an obligation to protect animal health and welfare, promote public health, and prevent and relieve animal suffering. An AVMA policy statement on informed consent states, “Informed consent better protects the public by ensuring that veterinarians provide sufficient information in a manner so that clients may reach appropriate decisions regarding the care of their animals. Veterinarians, to the best of their ability, should inform the client . . . of the . . . risk assessment and prognosis . . . ” . As overweight and obese states impact longevity in dogs and quality of life in dogs and cats, and the condition can be reversed via dietary and lifestyle modifications, these codes of conduct suggest that veterinarians should address the issue of pet obesity each time it is recognized.
5. Compliance with Diagnosing and Discussing Obesity
Our collective experience of over 50 years in referral practice as internal medicine specialists has been that general practitioners seldom record the recognition or discussion of overweight or obesity with pet owners. A retrospective study of the primary care veterinary records of 148 dogs in the United Kingdom over an approximately 12-month interval found that only 70% of the medical record entries documented the patient body weight. Only 29% of these records contained a qualitative assessment of the body condition, only 15% of records documented obesity, and a body condition score was documented in only one record for one dog. A survey-based study of 48 small-animal practices and 2661 dogs in Australia discovered that the practitioners categorized 41% of the patients as overweight or obese, but often did not inform the owners when a dog was overweight. Another retrospective report of 74 general practices in the United Kingdom, involving more than 49,000 dog visits, documented that only 1.4% of all of the record entries contained words pertaining to ‘overweight’ or ‘obese’. These findings demonstrate that small-animal veterinarians are not recognizing and discussing pet overweight and obesity with their clients.
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