What Are the Best and Worst Foods for Obesity that PTs Need to Know?

The TLDR:

• Strong Nutritional Evidence: A large meta-analysis supports advising patients on the benefits of whole grains, legumes, fruits, and nuts for obesity risk reduction, and the risks of sugary drinks and red meat.
• CEU Opportunity: This research exemplifies the evidence-based nutrition content offered in board-approved physical therapy continuing education courses.
• Practical Patient Education: PTs can use these findings for general nutritional guidance, emphasizing fiber-rich, lower-calorie plant-based foods.

If you like what you see here, check out our board-approved continuing education courses for PTs. We cover topics like:

- Nutrition interventions for chronic diseases (e.g., obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases)

- Advanced nutritional strategies to support physical therapy for patients with metabolic disorders

- Case studies demonstrating successful integration of nutrition into physical therapy care plans

Each physical therapy ceu course emphasizes practical, evidence-based learning, ensuring that participants can immediately apply the skills to their clinical practice. Sign up today and save:

Hey everyone, Dr. Wells here from Nutritional Physical Therapy. Beautiful day here in San Augustine Beach. Hope you're having a great day.

I got a new research update. This one is a cool one. It's a meta-analysis, a big one too, with 166,000 participants, 36,000 cases.

It's titled An Umbrella Review of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses of the Consumption of Different Food Groups and the Risk of Overweight and Obesity. So it's like a meta-analysis of a big study. It's by Christofferson et al., published in Nutrients, 2025, February.

Overall, the huge number of population or N on this study is what makes it for a really strong study. Really, they looked down at different food groups. So specifically, whole grains, legumes, fruits, nuts, sugar-sweetened beverages, and red meat.

Overall, the study qualities were really good and their homogeneity was really good too, except for processed meat and sugar-sweetened beverages. I have an understanding why, because those industries probably influenced a lot of the studies and study designs. But regardless, what did the authors find? Well, they found a 15% reduction risk in developing obesity with whole grains.

They saw a 13% reduction of developing obesity with legumes. A 12% reduction with fruits. So all my clients out there and all my friends that say, oh, fruits make you fat and things, sorry, research doesn't show that.

In fact, fruits are really good for you and they've been proven to have certain nutrients and fiber and things that are in them that are super important. Nuts, 7% reduction in developing obesity. Meanwhile, they found with sugar-sweetened beverages, no surprise, 17% increase in developing obesity.

Lastly, red meat, there was a 23% increase in developing obesity. So what did they find? Is this surprising? No, we know that consistently data from Mediterranean studies show that predominantly plant-based diets, foods that are high in fiber, low in calories, so that's things like whole grains, legumes, nuts, they tend to have better chronic health disease outcomes and they point towards better and optimal health. In this study, this meta-analysis and meta-analysis really kind of points to that and shows that.

So why is that? Well, we know that plant-based foods tend to have high amounts of fiber, which produces a lot of satiety and they also tend to be very low in calories. Meanwhile, the sugar-sweetened beverages, they tend to be very low or really no fiber and very high in calorie content. Same thing with red meat, it tends to be very high in calorie content and absolutely no fiber.

So at the end of the day, this study should be kind of a good highlight for us as physical therapists and healthcare providers to educate our patients around generalized nutrition. Again, any healthcare provider can provide that considering that these are data points that are fairly strong and consistent. If you like this and you want more on weight loss or nutrition or supplementation, check out our board-approved courses for physical therapists and sign up today.

Have a great one.

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