It is easy to judge fat people. The thin among us assume they sit around stuffing their faces with junk food, and that they are lazy and never exercise.

According to Ayesha Peets Talbot, those preconceptions are not fair.

The 34-year-old medic is the Island’s first board-certified obesity doctor.

Talk to her and she will explain that everyone who is overweight or obese does not necessarily fall in with stereotypes.

“Some people think that people who are overweight are lazy, but I don’t see that,” she said.

“It’s true that some people who are overweight need to exercise more, but some people have a gene that predisposes them to obesity.

“A lot of patients come into my office frustrated. They are exercising — some of them more than I do — and they aren’t losing weight.

“People with the gene have to exercise a lot harder than other people before they see any result.”

A recent study by the Bermuda Government classified three-quarters of the population as overweight or obese. The battle against the bulge has become a national concern, Dr Peets Talbot said.

“A lot of our healthcare dollars go to treating chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol,” she said. “Obesity is the common denominator for all of those. Even losing 10 per cent of a person’s body weight tends to make those problems better.”

She faced the issue head-on when her mother, Andrea Peets, decided it was time to get leaner.

“She wanted to lose weight to bring down her blood pressure,” Dr Peets Talbot said.

“She was exercising twice a day and wasn’t losing weight. I helped her with her diet and over a two-year period she lost about 20 to 30lbs, without changing the amount she was exercising.”

Dr Peets Talbot became interested in obesity and obesity-related conditions while completing her residency at Virginia Commonwealth University Hospital in Richmond.

“I was working in the ICU department,” she said. “A patient came in with the H1N1 flu virus. She was only in her forties and shouldn’t have died, but she had three major risk factors for further complications — diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.

“I decided I wanted to work with patients before they needed to be hospitalised. It was a hard decision to make because I really loved the adrenalin rush of ICU.”

She practises yoga as a means of keeping fit — and recommends it to others.

“Yoga can be good because it can be a good cardio, it strength trains and it is relaxing,” she said. “I also have an almost two-year-old daughter, Kameela, who keeps me on my toes. Most of the advice I give to my patients is stuff that I have done or try to follow myself.”

Dr Peets Talbot joined the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute in 2011, having specialised in internal medicine and paediatrics.

“King Edward VII Memorial Hospital was thinking about starting a weight-loss programme, so I went to a conference on obesity,” she said.

“I fell in love with obesity medicine instantly. It was like a missing puzzle piece fell into place for me.

“At this conference, doctors were talking about how they were successfully treating patients with lifestyle changes. They were getting patients off their medicines. I thought that was incredible.”

She said that she did not receive a lot of training on diet and nutrition while in medical school.

“Somehow that was missed or not as focused on,” she said. “I had to educate myself.”

Dr Peets Talbot is based at Ocean Rock Wellness on Point Finger Road, Paget. Her practice is split between paediatrics, internal medicine and obesity-related issues.

“I often think that if I had that flu patient today she might never have needed to be hospitalised,” she said.

“I might have been able to save her, before she ever reached that point, by treating her obesity issues.”

Diet and exercise are Dr Peets Talbot’s mainstays, but when necessary she recommends surgical options for severely obese people.

“Obesity medicine specialists are really good at suggesting lifestyle changes and understanding which ones are more helpful than others,” she said.

“There is a lot of information out there now that really isn’t good as far as weight loss. I help people figure out what is a fad and what is better for long-term success.”

Dr Peets Talbot has been surprised by how well obesity medicine works.

“I had one patient come in with Parkinson’s and chronic pain,” she said. “She wasn’t a good surgical candidate even though she had problems with bad arthritis in her back. I worked with her over a two-year period to help her manage her weight. She lost 30 to 50lbs, which was really a modest amount of weight.”

The weight loss enabled the client to become a candidate for back surgery. She was also able to come off the drugs she had been taking for many years.

“To me that was amazing,” Dr Peets Talbot said. “I had never before had a patient who came off morphine. Cases like this have been a pleasant surprise.”

Taxing sugar has been suggested as a way to improve the Island’s obesity epidemic but Dr Peets Talbot is a little hesitant about such a move.

She would like to see school vending machines stocked with water and healthy snacks.

“Maybe a better option would be to make healthier foods cheaper,” she said. “I often prescribe more fruits and vegetables for my patients and they sometimes struggle with the cost.”

She plans to research whether weight loss leads to fewer hospital visits and prescribed medications.

“There are over 200 different types of medication that can make you put on weight,” she said.