Obesity, laypeople's beliefs and implications for clinicians and leaders of healthcare organisations

Background/aim: Overweight and obesity (OAO) is a major and growing public health crisis in the world. There is convincing medical evidence that caloric overconsumption, rather than lack of exercise, is the primary driver of OAO.

Methods: In this translation piece, we summarise our programme of research on laypeople's beliefs about the primary cause of OAO, the origins of these beliefs and implications for clinicians and leadership in healthcare organisations.

Results: In contrast to the medical consensus, our research conducted in several countries has found that approximately half of the population mistakenly believes that lack of exercise is the primary cause of obesity. These misbeliefs have consequences: people who mistakenly believe that exercise is the most important factor are more likely to be overweight or obese than people who correctly believe that diet is the primary cause of obesity. We argue that these misbeliefs are caused in part by systematic and multipronged communications efforts by the food and beverage industry-a phenomenon we term 'leanwashing'.

Conclusions: Not only does leanwashing require public policy intervention by the government, healthcare professionals also need to respond appropriately. In this article, we focus on the implications of leanwashing for leaders of public health organisations, health delivery organisations and clinicians.