The words used on this site, defined plainly. Private weight management is described with a lot of overlapping terminology, some of it clinical and some of it marketing, and a clear definition is often the fastest way to work out whether two clinics are quoting you for the same thing.
Also known as: Weight loss clinic, Obesity clinic.
A service that assesses why a person’s weight is where it is and manages it as a clinical problem rather than a cosmetic one. The term is not protected, so it covers everything from a doctor-led multidisciplinary service to a single room with a questionnaire. What separates them is what happens in the first appointment.
Source: www.nice.org.uk
Also known as: Medical weight loss.
Weight management delivered by registered clinicians working to a clinical guideline, in the UK usually NICE NG246. The practical difference from a commercial diet programme is accountability: a registered clinician owes you a professional duty, answers to a regulator, and can order investigations a diet programme cannot.
Source: www.nice.org.uk
Also known as: BMI.
Weight divided by height squared, used as a rough screening measure across populations. It says nothing about where weight sits on a body or how much of it is muscle, so it misclassifies both muscular people and people carrying weight centrally. Useful as a starting point and poor as a verdict.
Source: www.nhs.uk
Waist measurement divided by height, with 0.5 the usual threshold of interest. It captures central fat, which carries more metabolic risk than fat elsewhere, and it does so better than BMI alone. A clinic that measures your waist as well as weighing you is using the better of the two.
Source: www.nice.org.uk
A clinical classification, conventionally a BMI of 30 or above in adults, indicating a level of body fat associated with increased health risk. It describes a measurement and a risk, and it is worth separating from the way the word is used socially, which is where most of its harm comes from.
Source: www.nhs.uk
The proportions of fat, muscle, bone and water making up body weight. It explains why two people at the same weight can be in very different health, and why a plan that reduces weight while losing muscle has not necessarily done anybody a favour.
Source: www.nhs.uk
Also known as: Defended weight range.
The idea that the body defends a weight range rather than a fixed number, and defends the bottom of that range harder than the top. It is the reason a plateau arrives on its own without any change in effort, and the reason maintenance needs its own plan rather than being what is left over.
The point at which weight stops falling despite unchanged effort. As weight drops the body needs less energy to run and appetite signalling shifts upward, so the original deficit closes on its own. It is the system working as designed, and a clinic worth paying warns you before it happens.
Also known as: Yo-yo dieting.
Repeated cycles of loss and regain. It is common, it is not a character failure, and it carries costs of its own beyond the discouragement. It is usually a sign that a plan was built for the losing phase and never for the phase afterwards, which is much the harder of the two.
The active phase after weight loss, in which the aim is holding a range rather than continuing to fall. It usually needs continued review, a plan for the situations that historically undid you, and an agreed floor. A service that discharges you on reaching a target has handed over the hardest part unsupported.
Source: www.nhs.uk
An NHS hospital-based service with a multidisciplinary team, for people whose weight carries a clinical complexity a lifestyle programme will not address. Access is by GP referral and criteria vary by area. Waits can be long, which is one of the honest reasons people pay privately instead.
Source: www.nhs.uk
A structured NHS lifestyle programme, commonly running about 12 weeks, covering diet, activity and behaviour change in a group or digital format. Depending on the area you can be referred by a GP or refer yourself. It is free, and it is worth exhausting before paying for something similar.
Source: www.nhs.uk
Also known as: Weight loss surgery, Tier 4.
Surgery that alters the stomach or digestive tract to change how much can be eaten and absorbed. It is a major intervention with a permanent effect on eating, and it carries the strongest long-term evidence of anything in this field. It is a procedure rather than a medicine, and nobody arrives at it casually.
Source: www.nhs.uk
Also known as: MDT.
A group of clinicians from different professions managing one person together, typically a doctor, a dietitian and a psychologist in this field. It is the structure NICE describes for complex weight management, and its presence or absence is a fair measure of how serious a service is.
Source: www.nice.org.uk
A regulated healthcare professional qualified to assess and treat diet-related conditions, and the only nutrition title protected by law in the UK. Anyone using it must be registered with the HCPC. This is the single most useful distinction when comparing two clinic brochures that read identically.
Source: www.bda.uk.com
An unprotected title in the UK, meaning anyone may use it regardless of training. Many nutritionists are well qualified and some hold voluntary registration, but the word itself guarantees nothing. Ask what the qualification is and which register it sits on, and check the register yourself.
Source: www.hcpc-uk.org
Also known as: Hypothyroidism.
A thyroid gland producing too little hormone, which slows metabolism and commonly causes weight gain, fatigue and feeling cold. It is common, it is diagnosed with a straightforward blood test, and it is treatable. It is the condition most worth excluding before anyone starts treating weight itself.
Source: www.nhs.uk
Eating patterns causing distress or harm without necessarily meeting the threshold for a diagnosed eating disorder. Rigid rules, guilt out of proportion to a missed plan, and food decisions occupying much of the day are the common signs. Weight-focused care can make it worse, so it is assessed before anything begins.
Source: www.nhs.uk
A preoccupation with eating in a way judged pure or correct, to the point that it narrows the diet and disrupts ordinary life. It is not a formal diagnosis in the main classification systems and it is widely recognised in practice, partly because it is easily mistaken for discipline and praised as such.
Source: www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk
The service that takes an enquiry from this site and arranges an assessment with a registered practitioner. It is operated by the UNTIL group, which owns this site. Nobody connected with this site assesses or treats anybody, and no per-enquiry payment sits behind the introduction.