In this episode of the Gaining Health Podcast, host Karli Burridge speaks with Faith Anne Heeren about Faith's experience living with obesity and undergoing metabolic and bariatric surgery as a teen.  They discuss the unique challenges that Faith faced as an adolescent, weight bias and stigma that she experienced from healthcare providers, and what providers can do to best support their patients with the chronic disease of obesity. 

Faith Anne Heeren is the President and Founder of OCEANS. The mission at OCEANS is Empowering young people on their weight management journey through themselves, their community, and society. 

Faith is a third year Doctoral Student at the University of Florida in the Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics. Her research interests include utilizing community-engaged research methods to develop and implement interventions that are acceptable and feasible for patients living with obesity. For her dissertation, she is working on identifying pre-operative education needs for adolescents undergoing bariatric surgery.

Website: www.oceanslifestyles.com

Twitter: faithhh_anne

Instagram: leap.of.faith.12

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The Gaining Health Podcast will release a new episode monthly, every second or third Wednesday of the month. Episodes including interviews with obesity experts as well as scientific updates and new guidelines for the management of obesity.

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