Posts Tagged ‘lived experience’

Metabolic and bariatric surgery in 2026 faces a strategic fork in the road. On one path we insist that surgery as the best option for weight loss – full stop. The other positions surgery as an essential tool for achieving optimal health in people living with obesity. How we choose to frame the value of […]

Twenty years ago, advocacy for people living with obesity was at ground zero. But now, we are entering a third decade of advocacy for the Obesity Action Coalition. We are in a profoundly different position. So we took the day yesterday to consider with leadership in the OAC community where the next two decades of […]

This has been quite a year. Many remarkable changes we’ve witnessed go well beyond the scope of this commentary. In the policy realm, some of them are close at hand. CDC, which has long guided health policy on obesity, nutrition, and physical activity, has been decimated. NIH is under extraordinary stress. But on the positive […]

In two decades of advocacy for persons living with obesity, we have found great satisfaction in seeing a central role emerge for the lived experience of these people. But it is especially inspiring to see it spread across many different countries with many different health systems. We saw this up close yesterday as a keynote […]

At the dawn of the second day of YWM2025 yesterday, a panel of people sharing diverse advocacy experiences began the day. Tracy Zvenyach, the Obesity Action Coalition (OAC) Director of Policy, chaired the session. Abrianna Wolfgram, Laura Gomez, Liz Paul, and Sarah Bramblette made the panel complete. Each of them had a unique story to […]

Thoughtful reporting by Jackie Snow in the New York Times prompts us to wonder about the possibility of a “contagion effect” from GLP-1s in families. When a parent receives highly effective treatment for obesity, what might the effect be on other family members? Of course, any answers to this question come from anecdotal observations. They […]

It is fascinating. Nutrition 2025 concluded yesterday in Orlando and even though the conference is all about nutrition research, an intense interest in the interaction of GLP-1 medicines with nutrition was a theme in the meeting from its very start all the way to the end. At the end, with two distinguished obesity researchers, Randy […]

ECO2025 in Málaga, Spain, today (Sunday) started off with a sweeping review of weight bias, obesity stigma, and strategies for ending them. It’s a big ambition. But it was an honor for ConscienHealth to participate with an array of experts in the subject. The thought to take away from it is simply that progress is […]

“People with neurodiversity have a greater risk of obesity, yet the involvement in policy development and research of people with neurodiversity and obesity is minimal.” Stuart Flint, Joe Nadglowski, Kim Murray, and Julia Simonetti tell us in the latest issue of Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology that collecting data on lived experiences from people who face […]

Seemingly limitless demand for obesity meds, botox, and lip fillers is driving robust growth for med spas in the U.S. The medical spa industry reports expansion from 1,600 locations in 2010 to more than 10,000 in 2023. The revenue for an average spa more than doubled to $1.4 million per spa. In 2023, that added […]