If you're overweight, your primary care physician will help
assess the role your weight plays in your knee pain and
recommend a plan of treatment accordingly. Most likely, a plan
for weight loss will be part of your treatment. Many knee
problems can be avoided by maintaining a healthy weight.
Carrying extra weight is directly related to knee pain. A 2008
review article in the journal Obesity found that obesity
(defined as having a body mass index of 30 or above) leads to
pain, limits activity, and increases the risk of needing a total
knee replacement. In 2003, Obesity Research published a study of
5,700 Americans over age 60. It showed that the more obese a
person was, the more likely he or she was to experience knee
pain. About 56% of severely obese people had significant knee
pain, compared with 15% of people who were not overweight. Such
findings are not surprising when you consider that with each
step on level ground, you put one to one-and-a-half times your
body weight on each knee. So a 200-pound perso