Drawing the Map for Transforming Obesity Care
For the last 18 months, some of the smartest people we know in the realm of obesity policy have been busy drawing a map. Their map, announced today, shows the way for transforming obesity care through three solution areas. These include creating engagement, building capabilities, and delivering integrated care. It comes from the Center for Biomedical System Design at Tufts Medical Center in Boston.
A Distinctive Roadmap
CEO Joe Nadglowski of the Obesity Action Coalition describes the distinctiveness of the project:
“This roadmap is distinctive for recognizing that real change requires stakeholders to understand each other’s pressures and work together. Providers face time constraints and reimbursement challenges, payers must balance costs across conditions, and policymakers navigate competing priorities.
“By mapping how these motivations intersect, we’ve identified 36 specific actions that only succeed when stakeholders meaningfully come together to change the system – creating a path forward that works for everyone, not just individual organizations.”
A Fundamental Shift
Obesity Society President Marc-Andre Cornier describes the need for change he worked toward in this project:
“This roadmap shows the way to a fundamental shift in how our healthcare system approaches obesity. By bringing together diverse stakeholders who historically worked in silos, we’ve created a unified framework that addresses not just medical treatment, but the systemic biases, infrastructure gaps, and misaligned incentives that have prevented millions from receiving care.”
Now more than ever, we have the tools to reduce the burden of obesity on people who live with it. In so doing, we will reduce the burden on health and social systems that deal with the problems that flow from this disease.
So this map offers a path for transforming obesity care for the benefit of everyone. If we take the trouble to follow it.
Click here for the press release on this project and here for all the details.
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June 25, 2025
