You're listening to Veterinary Vertex, a podcast of the AVMA journals. In this episode, we chat about pet obesity and weight loss recommendations with Jason Coe, Abby Davies and Kat Sutherland.

Lisa Fortier: 0:19

Welcome to Veterinary Vertex. I'm Editor-in-Chief Lisa Fortier, and I'm joined by Associate Editor Sarah Wright. Today we have Jason, Abby and Kat joining us to talk about the very critical topic of pet obesity. Thank you so much, all of you, for taking the time to be with us here today.

Jason Coe: 0:35

Thanks for having us. Thank you.

Sarah Wright: 0:39

All right, let's dive into the world of pet weight loss recommendations. Abby, your JAVMA articles discuss how information about life expectancy related to obesity was most important to cat and dog owners when deciding whether to act on a veterinarian's weight loss recommendation. Please share with our listeners the background on these studies.

Abby Davies: 0:59

Yeah. So pet obesity has been an ongoing concern for the veterinary profession, with its associated health risks impacting both cats and dogs. So when addressing this issue during obesity-related conversations, it has been received as a sensitive and challenging task for veterinary professionals when engaging with clients who have pets with excess weight. So to help veterinarians navigate these difficult conversations, we conducted two studies that look at two separate populations, one's focusing on dogs and the other's focusing on cats. The methodology used for both of these studies was the same, which was sophisticated yet potentially complex for some, but basically, pet owners were asked to imagine a hypothetical scenario in which their pet is obese and they were then presented with a range of questions that were designed to assess their preferences for obesity-related information. So, out of these two studies, I was in lead of the dog obesity study as part of my master's program, and Kat was in lead of the cat obesity study.

Sarah Wright: 2:10

These are very important topics and we talked a little bit about this earlier when everyone jumped on the call that this pet obesity can be really, really hard to have that conversation with owners. I definitely can attest to that. My cat is obese, unfortunately. Even as a veterinarian, it's still a hard conversation to have and to realize then to figure out how to take action to help your pet live their best life. So thank you for sharing this with us. And then, Abby, what were some pivotal results from the dog study?

Abby Davies: 2:40

Yeah. So what we discovered among participating dog owners was that impact on life expectancy was the most preferred obesity-related attribute, and this is really, really important because veterinary professionals can use this information to improve their communication with clients regarding dog obesity by highlighting the potential benefits, such as the extended lifespan, in their conversations with pet owners. So, by recognizing and understanding what clients prioritize for their dogs, allows veterinary professionals to tailor their communication effectively and to help encourage clients to take the proactive steps towards weight management for their overweight or obese pets.

Sarah Wright: 3:23

And then moving to our other species, our feline friends, Kat. What were some pivotal results from the cat study?

Kat Sutherland: 3:30

Yeah, so for the cat owner and participants it was really similar to the dog owning population that we looked at, in the sense that the most important information related to obesity for those cat owners was the potential impact on life expectancy, followed by things like change to cost of food, quality of life being of similar importance, and then, a little farther down the list, mobility and risk of diabetes.

Kat Sutherland: 3:56

So the diabetes was something that was specific to the cat study that we didn't look at with the dogs, but it's really interesting for both of these because life expectancy was the most important information to the participating owners. And when we look back at some of our prior observational work around the weight and obesity-related conversations that are actually happening in practices, it's not something that we hear coming up frequently in those conversations or that veterinary professionals are sharing with their clients who have over-conditioned pets. We looked at over 900 recorded interactions and 150 of those were related to obesity, and impact on lifespan was only mentioned in very few, just a handful that it came up for those clients. So I think there's potentially that disconnect between what owners are saying is important information for them to hear and what veterinary professionals may be discussing with their clients, and it also seems like a really clear, great opportunity to incorporate that into those conversations and hopefully a relatively easy change to add that information in.

Lisa Fortier: 5:03

Yeah, very interesting. I would love to know what you find out about equine clients as well. I'm an equine veterinarian and for sure, if you even see the ribs on a horse, people get a little gaspy that oh, it's underweight. They like them chubby too from the show ring, and owners as well. Jason, your group looks at a lot of really important topics in veterinary medicine. What specifically sparked your interest in pet obesity?

Jason Coe: 5:31

Yeah, so, speaking of our group and our research, so we about 15 years ago started really focusing on nutrition related communication and veterinary practice, and part of that was the American Animal Hospital Association, the World Small Animal Veterinary Association, coming out with nutrition as a fifth vital assessment. So we did some studies there where we really started to unpack and realize there are little things we could do differently to change the conversation. And so, as we built research in that area, nutrition is such a pivotal piece as it relates to pet obesity. It kept coming back to this how come the needle's not moving as it relates to pet obesity with dogs and cats and, if anything, it's just continuing to go in a forward direction where more dogs and cats are being identified as being overweight or obese? And so I was interested in starting to look at well, how can we take a totally different approach. We've been trying to address this for decades in our profession and it keeps coming up as a priority topic, and yet we're not moving the needle in the direction that we're hoping to, and so I was really interested in taking our approach, which is really looking at that sort of bridge, at the point of care, between the conversation of veterinary or veterinary professional has with a client and what role it might be having in the obesity issue.

Jason Coe: 6:50

And so, recognizing there's lots of research being done to really help inform obesity and how we manage or address obesity and even by reducing, you know, a small percentage on an obese animal we can improve the quality of life.

Jason Coe: 7:03

If we could get that into the hands of owners so that they understood that then could we have a greater impact. And so that's where Kat and I first met. I was interested in doing this work. I got an interest in nutrition and obesity as well, and so that turned into Kat's PhD which Kat referenced there where the first piece was going out and better understanding both client and veterinarians perceptions around the topic and then starting to understand like what is the conversation, where we did some observational work and identified there is a breakdown in that bridge in terms of conversation between the veterinary and veterinary professional and the client around obesity. And so it's led to some opportunities, I think, and I think this study nicely starts to fill in some of where we need to focus on some of those opportunities as it relates to information that clients prefer, as it relates to understanding the impact that pet obesity can have for the pets.

Lisa Fortier: 7:55

I think you're at least moving the needle on the education side. You know many, most universities. They have part of their teaching of students how to have this conversation. It's hard as an owner to receive the wording that your animals obese immediately. You're going to shut down over condition might be a little bit better. My mother taught me to say well covered. I'm well covered right now, coming out of winter, but you're making a huge difference. So thank you for all of our pets.

Jason Coe: 8:24

Thank you for taking that.

Lisa Fortier: 8:25

Why did you selfishly I'm going to ask this question why did you wonderfully submit these manuscripts to JAVMA?

Jason Coe: 8:33

Yeah, no, that's a great question. And so I mean, if I look back on my career, when I first started publishing, my first paper was in JAVMA in 2007. And I think at that point in time, as a graduate student early in my career, I saw JAVMAs reaching the audience that I was very interested in having impact with and so that being practitioners out in practice getting our information into their hands, and so I've continued to publish quite a bit in JAVMA over the years and then, candidly, there was a period there where we actually moved away from publishing in JAVMA and part of it was just took a long time, to you know, two years after acceptance, to be published. And then, I would say, in the last couple of years, we've really shifted back to JAVMA because of the reach into the audience that were after the timelines for publication have dramatically reduced, where even these papers we've just submitted them and we're already in a process of getting them out into the hands of veterinary professionals, and so I really am appreciative of JAVMA and how they've really moved the needle towards taking the knowledge and getting it out into the main stream in terms of being able to share that information.

Jason Coe: 9:42

I also were more and more trying to work towards publishing open access so that we can make sure that the information we have is getting available to practitioners who don't necessarily have a subscription or have access through a university or those types of things and so really appreciate that. You know, javma has even brought down their open access fee and so that's great and I think it's just that forward thinking I can see happening with JAVMA. I just noticed that there's a student award for publications too. So, again, continuing to move the needle and how we kind of engage and get people to engage with sharing that knowledge distribution, which is a real focus for our team. One of our pillars is really looking at how can we take the knowledge we're gaining through our research in an academic setting that is drawing on practice and actually put that back into the hands of people in practice, which I see JAVMA being a really strong route for us to be able to do that.

Lisa Fortier: 10:38

Wow, thank you. You know, and the other part is you and Kat and Abby taking the time to be here on this podcast. There'll be a lot of pet owners who will hear about this and then about this critical issue of pet obesity. And how could if you don't have an obese pet? You're looking at an extended lifespan. So again, thank you for your time in helping us get your important information out to the listeners.

Jason Coe: 11:01

Thank you.

Lisa Fortier: 11:03

Kat and Abby both talked a little bit about what the maybe the most seminal findings of the feline and dog studies were. But, Jason, what surprised you in these two studies?

Jason Coe: 11:17

Yeah, it's an interesting question. So I think, going into the study, I didn't expect the the pet would live longer would become sort of the number one preference of owners, for both cat and dog owners, and it was notably their preference over all of the other attributes that we looked at. So, thinking back on it, you know it's not surprising because a lot of the research we've done and others have done really talks about how clients want to understand the value to the health and well-being of their pet and that really is connected with their pet living longer and so in hindsight it makes sense. Yet I wasn't necessarily thinking ahead of time that that's how things would lay out. I think one of the interesting things for me is just quality of life and where it fell in preference.

Jason Coe: 12:04

We often, when we're presenting and you know talking about how do we communicate with clients the value of maintaining an ideal body condition score or reducing the weight of their pet, we refer to quality of life and in both the cat and dog study, quality of life fell third in order in terms of preference, and I think part of that because we've had lots of discussions as to what might be the reason behind that I think quality of life as a sort of idea is a bit nebulous for an owner to grab on to, and so I think there is a need to do a bit more work in this area to understand clients perceptions of what quality of life means and what is important to them within the context of quality of life, and do we need more objective things that they can actually see and identify.

Jason Coe: 12:49

The other thing is we've been thinking about this more and more and, as I've started talking in various places around this idea from these papers, I feel like there's an opportunity here to build quality of life assessments more throughout a pet's life than currently, where we often use them as sort of in that end of life decision making process when, if we started with them from day one and tracked and trended of quality of life of an animal, we can start making some relationships between when it gets overweight and some of the impacts that's having on the animal, because, again, there's good research in this field to show that bringing the weight down by 5 to 10% of an overly obese or even an overage animal can improve the quality of life. So tremendous opportunity, and I think there's something we can do here to again help move, that needle we've talked about throughout the podcast.

Sarah Wright: 13:40

That quality of life finding is really interesting. It's really such an important conversation that veterinarians have with pet owners, especially in regards to euthanasia. People always ask, when do you know it's time? And usually veterinarians then dive into. Well, depends on their quality of life, and if you're saying that maybe that's something that our clients don't really have a good grasp on, it's definitely worth investigating. It's such an important conversation that so many veterinarians have and, for those of you just joining us, we're chatting with Jason, abby and Kat about pet obesity and weight loss recommendations. Kat, how has previous research led you to this current publication?

Kat Sutherland: 14:16

Sure, yeah, so I know we touched on a little bit and Jason mentioned some of our prior work as well. But for me this really started when my interest in pet nutrition broadly got sparked a number of years ago and I had the opportunity to do a little bit of research related to dog obesity. And then at that point I met Jason and he did have that interest in looking at nutrition related conversations and communication in practice. So I think obesity and weight was a natural fit within that, so moved into my PhD and during one of our studies, as we said, we were interested in both veteran and professional and client perceptions of weight related communication. So for this particular project we were looking at pet owners stage of change or their readiness to make a change to address their pets weight when they themselves identified their pet as being over conditioned or having an over ideal body condition score.

Kat Sutherland: 15:14

So for that sample of pet owners we saw that there was overall a very low readiness to change and not much impetus to take action at that point for those participants to address the pet or the pet's weight.

Kat Sutherland: 15:28

And perhaps that isn't in and of itself too shocking, especially for those who are working in practice and having those conversations. But it did lead us to asking okay, if they're not ready, how can we support pet owners in moving towards those later action oriented stages or how can we help them become more ready and in that mindset where they're willing to take on some changes to help manage their pets weight? So alongside that project, we had already explored some content and process of weight related communication in practice with that observational work. So what's being said and how it's being shared. And the next step for us coming out of that project was what information do pet owners value that would help move them towards those action stages. And that's where this kind of project and survey seemed to fit nicely in determining some of those preferences for information from dog and cat owners and led us to this particular methodology and design for these two studies.

Sarah Wright: 16:29

Yeah, it's such an important topic, as we've said, and we look forward to seeing, hopefully, more of your work in the future. It sounds like there's a lot more to build upon. So there's always more questions, always important to stay curious. Now, this next set of questions is going to be very important for our listeners. Kat, what is one piece of information the veterinarian should know before discussing pet obesity with the client?

Kat Sutherland: 16:53

Yeah. So I do think that it is really critical to take the time to explore and understand your individual client's perception of their pets weight, and perhaps getting a sense of their current stage of change is important as a starting point so you can tailor your approach and be better positioned to have an effective conversation with that client at the right time. The other piece again is that some of that observational work we've done previously tells us that what owners are saying is important information to them isn't coming up in those conversations when veterinarian professionals are talking about obesity. So that's something to consider is what information are you sharing with your clients and what do they value and what's important for them personally and in their individual relationship with their pet? And it's not to say that you shouldn't talk about XYZ and focus on only ABC. All of these things are worthwhile pieces of information to share, but it comes back to that individualized understanding of your client's perspective and what they care about most for them and their pet.

Sarah Wright: 18:00

And then, on the other side of the relationship, what's one thing clients should consider around pet obesity. Thank you.

Kat Sutherland: 18:07

Yeah, I think the one area with this. We do have good evidence that if you maintain your pet's ideal body condition, there can be a positive impact on lifespan and potentially delayed onset of diseases like arthritis that are going to have an impact on their health and well-being, and that's particularly the case for dogs. It's not quite as clear cut, perhaps, for cats, yet. I think owners of cats and dogs might consider how their pet's weight is impacting their health and their ability to do the things that they enjoy doing in a given day. I can speak for myself as a pet owner. My cats are sleeping nicely in the corner here and I'd like them to be happy and healthy and with me as long as possible, and I think that's what most owners are looking for for their pets as well. So just learning about and remembering that maintaining a healthy body condition over your pet's life is one of those things that we can do for them that we generally have some control over and can help them live those happy, healthy lives for a long time.

Lisa Fortier: 19:09

All right, I'm in. I'm in for myself. I'll call it fat February Time for me to lose my 5% and my horse. And Sarah, you're in for your cat. Thank you all so much. I learn every time you guys write manuscripts, and even more on these podcasts. So thank you again for sharing with us.

Kat Sutherland: 19:28

Thank you so much for having us and letting us share some of this. We appreciate it.

Abby Davies: 19:32

Thank you. Thank you so much for having us on your podcast today to discuss our papers.

Jason Coe: 19:39

Yeah, it's really important, as we talked about earlier, lisa, just getting this knowledge into the hands of professionals and, as we've talked about as well, the general client that is attending veterinary practices all the time, I think is important because there's just so much we can do for both the animal and the people, and so really appreciate this opportunity to have just one more avenue to share the things that we're doing and some of the knowledge that we're starting to gain through the research our teams be conducting. So, thank you.

Lisa Fortier: 20:09

Yeah, thank you guys. As we wind down, we like to ask a little fun question and, jason, since I have you, we'll start with you. What is your favorite animal fact?

Jason Coe: 20:20

Well, that's a big question. So one of the things that hits me when you ask that question a lot of this podcast is taking me into my past. So that's interesting. Yeah, before I got into vet school, I spent a summer working at the Toronto Metro Zoo and I was working with the camels and learned that camels only have three stomachs, which, going through vet school and even prior to going into vet school, you learn about the rumenant and the four stomachs. So I always found that a fascinating thing that camels only had three stomachs.

Lisa Fortier: 20:51

Very true. Same with llamas and alpacas when they became popular here I'm going to date myself talking about your past probably 92, when I started my residency and we had a llama with something wrong with one of its compartments, I literally had to get out the anatomy book. That's not what you want to hear from your resident surgeon, but we hadn't operated an abdominal distress. A llamar alpacas, so yeah, three compartments.

Jason Coe: 21:18

Just like this. One's missing, right, so yeah.

Lisa Fortier: 21:22

For sure, we thought there were rumenants like any other cat. How about you? What's your favorite animal fact?

Kat Sutherland: 21:28

Yeah, it's hard to pick a favorite, but a really interesting one I learned recently was about manatees. And they're so big, they're enormous, they weigh a literal ton, but they only have about three to five percent body fat, so not a lot of fat at all, and they're really susceptible to cold water due to that. So I thought that was fascinating, given it's not what you would expect just looking at them.

Lisa Fortier: 21:50

I did not know that this is going to be my favorite podcast question. Abby, how about you?

Abby Davies: 21:56

Yeah, so I really like penguins and the gentoo penguin that there's this fun fact about them that they actually the male finds this pebble and will bring the pebble to its significant other as almost like a proposal, so to show their love and like their relationship, and they use that pebble to build a nest for their young. I thought it was super cute.

Sarah Wright: 22:20

That's the perfect animal fact for February, with Valentine's Day and American Heart Month, so thank you for sharing that.

Sarah Wright: 22:27

That's awesome and just thank you all again. We really appreciate you being here and for sharing the information about your manuscripts with our listeners and to our listeners. You can find Jason, Abby and Kat's articles and print Java or using your favorite search engine. I'm Sarah Wright with Lisa Fortier. You want to thank each of you for joining us on this episode of the veterinary vertex podcast. We love sharing cutting edge veterinary research with you and we want to hear from you. Be sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you listen to.

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