Obesity remains under diagnosed in English hospital in-patients

SummaryThere is a high prevalence of obesity in hospital populations. BMI and waist circumference are both simple and inexpensive screening tools for detection of obesity and if used would allow clinical guidelines for weight management to be implemented. Health care professionals should routinely screen all in-patients for overweight and obesity in UK hospitals, but compliance with this performance measure is poor. We found that weight was recorded only in 50–70% hospital in-patients. BMI was recorded in less than 50% of patients and waist circumference was never even mentioned in hospital notes.