Are We Flipping the Script on Obesity? Really?

A new interview with ConscienHealth founder Ted Kyle offers a long view of more than two decades of work on obesity. The interview explores a core question that people ask all the time: Are we making progress in flipping the script on obesity?

Or are we still fighting the same misunderstanding of obesity that has confronted us from the beginning?

Ultimately, the answer to both questions is yes.

Listening First

The interview with Mary Ellen Kuhn for Food Technology Magazine starts with the work Kyle did at GSK Consumer Healthcare. The point was to understand the needs of persons living with obesity. He told Kuhn:

“The first step in trying to figure out a business opportunity in consumer health care is to listen to people and understand their needs. And the more I listened to people, the more I heard about the impact that this condition has on their lives.”

A big part of that impact comes not from the medical implications of this disease. In many cases, most of it comes from the social and psychological effects of stigma. Falsely, people have long assumed that obesity is the consequence of bad choices. A bad diet. An inactive life.

Better Treatments Make a Difference

Researchers know that script is false. But, as Kyle explained, the emergence of effective treatments for obesity is what is serving to flip the script. As people see that medicine can reverse the condition, the public is beginning to understand how false the understanding of obesity has been:

“All the stigma, all the bias, all the assumptions that people are just stupid and eating the wrong things really hasn’t been helping. I’ve known that for a long time. And people who live with obesity kind of know it. It’s just very satisfying to see the world coming around to understanding the medical truth of this condition.

A Work in Progress

Clearly, though, this is a work in progress. The scale for delivering needed care is still lacking. Access to care is inadequate. High costs and health plans that deny coverage due to implicit bias are very real problems.

Kyle expresses hope that we will overcome those problems. In fact he says, overcoming obesity has potential to move the food industry toward a business model that promotes health rather than obesity:

“My hope is that the business model for food will evolve toward quality over volume so that we are trading people up to food that they can enjoy in a more healthful way.”

Read the full interview here.

Interview with Ted Kyle, photograph © Brian Kaldorf / Food Technology Magazine

Subscribe by email to follow the accumulating evidence and observations that shape our view of health, obesity, and policy.

March 31, 2025