Obesity care

Expanding the Provision of Obesity Care

By Dr. Kushner / August 12, 2024 /

As an obesity medicine physician, I have been on a mission to train health care professionals about providing obesity care in their practices. Most recently, I spoke at the American Society for Preventive Cardiology Congress where the room was packed with colleagues wanting to learn about new obesity care treatments. The timing was perfect as…

Take a More Active Role in Your Weight Management Care

By Dr. Kushner / June 24, 2024 /

As a weight management expert, I’ve been encouraging my patients to take a more active role in their care for years. If this is something you’re interested in doing, engaging in shared decision making with your health care professional can be helpful. Shared decision-making is a process whereby health care professionals and patients come to…

Obesity Care Rx Considerations

By Dr. Kushner / April 6, 2024 /

Effective obesity care management begins with lifestyle modification (healthy eating patterns, increased physical activity and health behavior modification) for everyone as this is needed for optimal health. For select patients where lifestyle management is not effective enough to achieve improved health, medications or bariatric surgery can also be considered. As new and more effective medication…

Get Support for Obesity Care

By Dr. Kushner / March 6, 2024 /

If you struggle with overweight or obesity, you’re probably aware of the mixed messages in the media that surround the disease of obesity as well as its treatments. In support of Obesity Care Week, an annual public awareness campaign, I’d like to highlight some important obesity care resources: 1-Obesity Action Coalition (OAC) OAC is a…

Understanding New Medication Treatments for Obesity Care

By Dr. Kushner / March 3, 2024 /

Obesity is a chronic, progressive disease associated with multiple complications and co-morbidities, like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke and some forms of cancer. Because the disease of obesity is complex, we use multiple weight management treatments that work well together. Effective obesity care management begins with lifestyle modification (healthy eating patterns, increased physical activity…

Heart Health & Obesity Care in the News

By Dr. Kushner / November 14, 2023 /

This is an exciting time for heart health as a recent landmark study called SELECT has shown that taking the anti-obesity medication semaglutide can lower your risk for having a second cardiac event by 20%, while losing an average of over 9% body weight. And a new American Heart Association (AHA) Presidential Advisory highlights the…

Changing Hearts & Minds about Obesity

By Dr. Kushner / October 11, 2023 /

I recently attended the Obesity Action Coalition’s (OAC) Your Weight Matters 2023- Engage conference in Orlando. No matter how long I’ve been practicing, I continue to be inspired by those who share personal weight journey stories that include both their struggles and successes. Throughout the weekend, we heard inspiring stories from former professional football players,…

Weight Journey Reflections can Help you Move Forward

By Dr. Kushner / September 17, 2023 /

Before I help patients develop a personalized weight loss plan, I want to better understand each person’s weight journey – and how they got to where they are today. I have a technique I’ve used where I ask patients to plot their weight at different times of their life. For most patients, they are able…

Make Your Weight Management Practice a Judgement-Free Zone

By Dr. Kushner / July 4, 2023 /

One of the greatest barriers to accessing care for people with overweight or obesity are patients’ feelings of being judged by others because of excess weight. As I educate health care professionals about caring for patients with the disease of obesity, I address this by making sure that clinicians are firstly aware of their own…

Bridge the Gap between Body Positivity and Weight Management

By Dr. Kushner / May 5, 2023 /

With 5 hours of presentations, the Your Weight Matters 2023 Virtual Convention reached more than 1500 people around the world. I’d like to share some highlights from one of the talks given by clinical health psychologist Robyn Pashby on the topic of body positivity and weight management and how to find the middle ground between…