Scale Up Your Practice by Obesity Canada

Body image after metabolic bariatric surgery can be more complicated than the number on the scale suggests.

For some patients, weight may change while expectations, self-image and years of stigma remain. That can create a difficult disconnect between what someone hoped surgery would change and how they actually feel in their body afterward.

Dr. Sylvain Iceta joins us on the podcast to explore the psychological side of life after metabolic bariatric surgery, including the concept of natural weight, realistic expectations, body image, disordered eating and the importance of ongoing mental health support.

Dr. Iceta also discusses why clinicians should look beyond weight alone when defining treatment success, and how conversations about function, quality of life, self-perception and patient goals can support more compassionate, individualized care.

In this episode:

• Why mental health support is an important part of care before and after metabolic bariatric surgery
• How body image and self-image may change differently from body weight
• What “natural weight” means and why it can help shift focus away from the scale
• How clinicians can explore patients’ expectations without dismissing their goals
• The relationship between weight stigma, restriction and disordered eating
• Why eating behaviours should be assessed and reassessed throughout the surgical journey
• How non-weight outcomes such as mobility, function, mental health and quality of life can help redefine success
• The role of self-compassion, realistic goals and small successes in long-term well-being
• How clinicians can support patients in rebuilding confidence and trust in their own abilities

Additional resources:

• Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guideline: https://utm.guru/uuxNS 
• Free course: A Comprehensive Overview of Bariatric Surgery for Obesity Management: https://utm.guru/uuxNV 
• Free course: Exploring the Role of Mental Health and Psychological Interventions in Obesity Management: https://utm.guru/uuxNY 

Learning objectives:

• Apply the clinical concepts of "natural weight" and "psychological weight" to help patients redefine success and establish realistic, values-driven health goals after metabolic bariatric surgery.
• Analyze the role of post-surgical psychological support in addressing disordered thinking, body image expectations, and internalized weight bias.
• Evaluate how BMI-centric messaging in clinical settings perpetuates weight stigma and self-blame, and implement compassionate, interdisciplinary strategies to shift clinical focus from the scale to functional health outcomes.

Enjoying the podcast?

Support Scale Up Your Practice by:

• Sharing this episode with a colleague or team member
• Subscribing on your favourite podcast platform
• Leaving a review to help more listeners find the show

Have a question or a topic you’d like us to cover?
Email us at [email protected]

Disclosures

This episode script was developed using NotebookLM to synthesize complex source materials into a structured educational format. The tool was used to analyze the Canadian Obesity Education Competencies (COECs), the Obesity Canada Strategic Plan, and guest-specific research. Specific prompts were utilized to extract relevant learning objectives, map them to CanMEDS roles, and generate competency-based interview questions.

While NotebookLM assisted in drafting the narrative arc and educational framework, all content has been reviewed, fact-checked, and refined by the podcast hosts and Obesity Canada's clinical experts. This ensures the script aligns with current Clinical Practice Guidelines and authentically represents the lived experience perspective.

🎙️This episode is sponsored by an unrestricted education grant from Eli Lilly Canada

Advice like “prep your meals,” “build a routine” or “just be consistent” can sound straightforward in a clinical setting. But for someone living with ADHD and obesity, that advice may carry a much higher cognitive cost than it appears to on the surface. 

Dr. Lisa Ma joins us on the podcast to explore how ADHD can intersect with obesity care through attention, executive function, reward processing, impulsivity and emotional regulation. We talk about what can happen when difficulties with execution are mistaken for a lack of knowledge or motivation, and how clinicians can make treatment plans more realistic for the person in front of them.

In this episode

• What clinicians should understand about the relationship between ADHD and obesity
• How executive function, attention and reward processing can affect everyday health behaviours
• How ADHD stigma and weight stigma can compound shame and self-blame
• Practical ways to make behaviour-change strategies more doable
• How ACT, CBT, mindful eating and other tools can fit into clinical care
• What to consider when ADHD treatment and obesity pharmacotherapy are both part of the care plan
• Why sleep, mood and anxiety deserve attention alongside ADHD and obesity
• How curiosity and collaboration can help clinicians adapt a plan when it is not working

Additional resources

• Dr. Ma’s YouTube channel: https://utm.guru/utGV3 
• Written resources from Dr. Ma: https://utm.guru/utGV9 
• Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guidelines: https://utm.guru/utGWf 
• Chapter: Effective psychological and behavioural interventions in obesity management: https://utm.guru/utGWj 
• Free course: Introduction to Behaviour Change Counselling for Obesity: https://utm.guru/utGWl 

Become a Certified Bariatric Educator

Today’s conversation is a good reminder that obesity care takes knowledge, compassion and a commitment to reducing stigma. For healthcare professionals with experience in obesity care, Obesity Canada’s Certified Bariatric Educator exam is one way to have that knowledge recognized and stand out in the field.

The next CBE exam takes place on November 28, 2026 and applications must be submitted by November 2 to be eligible to write.

Learn more and apply: https://utm.guru/utGWo 

Learning objectives

• Analyze the intersection of ADHD, neurodivergence, and executive dysfunction in weight management, shifting focus from diagnostic labels to an individual's functional profile.
• Apply personalized psychological and behavioral interventions (including ACT, CBT, and mindfulness-based strategies) to tailor behavior change for neurodivergent patients while mitigating weight bias and self-blame.
• Evaluate the role of pharmacotherapy as a vital tool in the clinical toolbox to support executive function, impulse control, and appetite regulation.

Enjoying the podcast?

Support Scale Up Your Practice by:

• Sharing this episode with a colleague or team member
• Subscribing on your favourite podcast platform
• Leaving a review to help more listeners find the show

Have a question or a topic you’d like us to cover?

Email us at [email protected]

Disclosures

This episode script was developed using NotebookLM to synthesize complex source materials into a structured educational format. The tool was used to analyze the Canadian Obesity Education Competencies (COECs), the Obesity Canada Strategic Plan, and guest-specific research. Specific prompts were utilized to extract relevant learning objectives, map them to CanMEDS roles, and generate competency-based interview questions.

While NotebookLM assisted in drafting the narrative arc and educational framework, all content has been reviewed, fact-checked, and refined by the podcast hosts and Obesity Canada's clinical experts. This ensures the script aligns with current Clinical Practice Guidelines and authentically represents the lived experience perspective.

What happens when healthcare professionals know what evidence-informed obesity care should look like, but the system makes that care difficult to deliver?

Ian Patton and Jennifer Brown join us on the podcast to unpack findings from The State of Obesity Care in Canada report and connect them to what clinicians and patients experience every day: limited referral pathways, uneven treatment coverage, gaps in psychological support, inconsistent access to metabolic bariatric surgery and the effects of weight bias at the system level.

In this episode

• Why access to primary care does not necessarily mean access to evidence-informed obesity care 
• How gaps in medication coverage and psychological support affect both patients and clinical teams 
• Why access to metabolic bariatric surgery can look very different across Canada 
• How weight bias can shape the way obesity care is organized, funded and prioritized 
• What system barriers can look like in everyday primary care practice Pasted markdown
• Practical ways healthcare professionals can use the report to support change within their own teams, organizations and communities
• How clinicians can add their real-world experience to broader advocacy for better obesity care

Additional resources

• Read The State of Obesity Care in Canada report: https://utm.guru/utelC 
• Send a letter to your elected officials asking them to support policies that help close the gaps in evidence-informed obesity care across Canada: https://utm.guru/utelC 

Learning objectives

• Analyze the core system gaps identified in the State of Obesity Care in Canada report and how structural barriers—such as uneven coverage, long wait times, and fragmented referral pathways—directly impact daily clinical practice.
• Evaluate how systemic weight bias and the lack of public funding for two of the three core pillars of treatment (pharmacotherapy and psychological interventions) undermine chronic disease management and burden both patients and healthcare teams.
• Apply clinician advocacy tools and evidence-based frameworks to partner with patients, challenge administrative hurdles, and drive provincial and federal systems-level change.

Enjoying the podcast?

Support Scale Up Your Practice by:

• Sharing this episode with a colleague or team member
• Subscribing on your favourite podcast platform
• Leaving a review to help more listeners find the show

Have a question or a topic you’d like us to cover?

Email us at [email protected]

Disclosures

This episode script was developed using NotebookLM to synthesize complex source materials into a structured educational format. The tool was used to analyze the Canadian Obesity Education Competencies (COECs), the Obesity Canada Strategic Plan, and guest-specific research. Specific prompts were utilized to extract relevant learning objectives, map them to CanMEDS roles, and generate competency-based interview questions.

While NotebookLM assisted in drafting the narrative arc and educational framework, all content has been reviewed, fact-checked, and refined by the podcast hosts and Obesity Canada's clinical experts. This ensures the script aligns with current Clinical Practice Guidelines and authentically represents the lived experience perspective.

🎙️This episode is sponsored by an unrestricted education grant from Eli Lilly Canada

What a patient says in an obesity care conversation may not tell the whole story.

In this episode, Dr. Roshan Abraham and Michelle McMillan explore what can sit beneath silence, hesitation or agreement, especially after past experiences with weight bias or stigma. They share practical ways clinicians can build trust, ask better questions and make follow-up feel safer.

In this episode

• Why silence or hesitation may reflect mistrust, not disinterest
• How past weight bias can shape the next clinical conversation
• Why asking permission can help build trust
• How curiosity can uncover barriers a patient is experiencing
• Why agreement does not always mean a plan feels realistic
• How to make follow-up feel safer when treatment does not go as expected
• Why health, function and patient goals matter beyond the number on the scale

Additional resources

• Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guidelines https://utm.guru/us5rk 
• Free course: Words Matter: The Consequences of Weight Bias and Stigmatizing Language https://utm.guru/us5rm 
• Free course: Obesity Assessment Essentials https://utm.guru/us5rp 

Become a Certified Bariatric Educator

Today’s conversation is a good reminder that obesity care takes knowledge, compassion and a commitment to reducing stigma. For healthcare professionals with experience in obesity care, Obesity Canada’s Certified Bariatric Educator exam is one way to have that knowledge recognized and stand out in the field.

The next CBE exam takes place on November 28, 2026 and applications must be submitted by November 2 to be eligible to write.

Learn more and apply: https://utm.guru/us5rG 

Enjoying the podcast?

Support Scale Up Your Practice by:

• Sharing this episode with a colleague or team member
• Subscribing on your favourite podcast platform
• Leaving a review to help more listeners find the show

Have a question or a topic you’d like us to cover?
Email us at [email protected]

Disclosures

This episode script was developed using NotebookLM to synthesize complex source materials into a structured educational format. The tool was used to analyze the Canadian Obesity Education Competencies (COECs), the Obesity Canada Strategic Plan, and guest-specific research. Specific prompts were utilized to extract relevant learning objectives, map them to CanMEDS roles, and generate competency-based interview questions.

While NotebookLM assisted in drafting the narrative arc and educational framework, all content has been reviewed, fact-checked, and refined by the podcast hosts and Obesity Canada's clinical experts. This ensures the script aligns with current Clinical Practice Guidelines and authentically represents the lived experience perspective.

🎙️This episode was made possible through the partnership between Obesity Canada and Boehringer Ingelheim in support of the Global Patient Charter Framework initiative. 

Lived experience belongs at the table where care is designed.

Marc Bains, Lisa Schaffer and Ian Patton join Roshan and Michelle to talk about how the patient voice and lived experience can shape better care, stronger advocacy and more person-centred health systems. The conversation explores what obesity care can learn from HeartLife’s Patient and Caregiver Charter, and how Obesity Canada is beginning work toward a Canadian Patient Charter for Obesity.

In this episode

• How lived experience can improve patient-centred obesity care
• What obesity care can learn from HeartLife’s Patient and Caregiver Charter
• How patient voice can shape healthcare policy, research and clinical practice
• Why person-centred care starts by asking “what matters to you?”
• How healthcare professionals can partner with people living with chronic disease
• Why lived experience is essential to shared decision-making and better care
• What Obesity Canada is building through the Canadian Patient Charter for obesity care

Additional resources

• Heartlife Patient and Caregiver Charter: https://utm.guru/usIJa
• Global Foundational Patient Charter for Obesity: https://utm.guru/urFpe 

Learning objectives

• Apply principles of meaningful patient partnership and co-design to foster collaborative, patient-centred care and a culture of safety and quality in clinical practice.
• Analyze the role of patient partnership and multidisciplinary collaboration in improving access to evidence-based obesity care and reducing health inequities.
• Evaluate opportunities to integrate lived experience into clinical practice, quality improvement initiatives, and healthcare system design to improve patient outcomes.

Enjoying the podcast?

Support Scale Up Your Practice by:

• Sharing this episode with a colleague or team member
• Subscribing on your favourite podcast platform
• Leaving a review to help more listeners find the show

Have a question or a topic you’d like us to cover?

Email us at [email protected]

Disclosures

This episode script was developed using NotebookLM to synthesize complex source materials into a structured educational format. The tool was used to analyze the Canadian Obesity Education Competencies (COECs), the Obesity Canada Strategic Plan, and guest-specific research. Specific prompts were utilized to extract relevant learning objectives, map them to CanMEDS roles, and generate competency-based interview questions.

While NotebookLM assisted in drafting the narrative arc and educational framework, all content has been reviewed, fact-checked, and refined by the podcast hosts and Obesity Canada's clinical experts. This ensures the script aligns with current Clinical Practice Guidelines and authentically represents the lived experience perspective.

🎙️This episode is sponsored by an unrestricted education grant from Eli Lilly Canada

Pregnancy care should feel safe, respectful and supportive for every patient. But for pregnant patients living with obesity, clinical spaces can sometimes create anxiety before care even begins, from waiting room seating and equipment that do not fit, to conversations about weight, pregnancy risk and health that can feel stigmatizing.

In this episode of Scale Up Your Practice, Dr. Cynthia Maxwell joins Dr. Roshan Abraham and Michelle McMillan to discuss how healthcare professionals can create safer, more equitable pregnancy care for patients living with obesity. She shares practical strategies to reduce weight bias in maternal care, communicate pregnancy risks without blame, ask permission around weighing, and build healthcare environments where patients feel physically and psychologically safe.

In this episode

How to create safer pregnancy care for patients living with obesity

Why respectful maternal care starts with language, trust and psychological safety

How to talk about pregnancy risks, weight and health without blame or shame

Why asking permission before weighing patients can help reduce weight bias

How clinic design, equipment sizing and digital tools can affect patient safety

Why inclusive, stigma-free care benefits patients, families and healthcare teams

How healthcare professionals can build more welcoming clinical spaces across the full patient journey

Additional resources

Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guidelines: https://utm.guru/ussjg 

Chapter: Weight management over the reproductive years for adult women with obesity: https://utm.guru/ussjh 

Pregnancy Obesity Medicine Surgery (POMS) Fellowship Program with Dr. Maxwell: https://utm.guru/ussji 

Become a Certified Bariatric Educator

Today’s conversation is a good reminder that obesity care takes knowledge, compassion and a commitment to reducing stigma. For healthcare professionals with experience in obesity care, Obesity Canada’s Certified Bariatric Educator exam is one way to have that knowledge recognized and stand out in the field.

The next CBE exam takes place on November 28, and applications must be submitted by November 2 to be eligible to write.

Learn more and apply: https://utm.guru/ussjj 

Learning objectives

Apply patient-centered, people-first language to collaboratively communicate potential pregnancy risk factors and monitor health metrics, ensuring the patient does not feel blamed or stigmatized.

Analyze the clinical environment—from waiting room seating to the sizing of medical equipment like blood pressure cuffs, speculums, and ultrasound limitations—to identify and resolve physical barriers that compromise patient safety and comfort.

Evaluate how systemic weight bias and scale aversion negatively impact maternal healthcare, and implement compassionate strategies to foster a more inclusive, welcoming hospital and clinic experience for expectant mothers.

Enjoying the podcast?

Support Scale Up Your Practice by:

Sharing this episode

Subscribing on your favourite podcast platform

Leaving a review

Have a question or a topic you’d like us to cover?
Email us at [email protected]

Disclosures

This episode script was developed using NotebookLM to synthesize complex source materials into a structured educational format. The tool was used to analyze the Canadian Obesity Education Competencies (COECs), the Obesity Canada Strategic Plan, and guest-specific research. Specific prompts were utilized to extract relevant learning objectives, map them to CanMEDS roles, and generate competency-based interview questions.

While NotebookLM assisted in drafting the narrative arc and educational framework, all content has been reviewed, fact-checked, and refined by the podcast hosts and Obesity Canada's clinical experts. This ensures the script aligns with current Clinical Practice Guidelines and authentically represents the lived experience perspective.

🎙️This episode is sponsored by an unrestricted education grant from Eli Lilly Canada

Metabolic bariatric surgery is often misunderstood as a last resort, or dismissed as “the easy way out.” In this episode, Dr. Boris Zevin joins Dr. Roshan Abraham and Michelle McMillan to discuss where surgery fits in obesity care, how it affects the biology of obesity, and how clinicians can talk about it with less stigma and more clarity.

In this episode

• Where metabolic bariatric surgery fits in obesity care

• Why surgery is more than “weight loss surgery”

• How surgery can affect hormones, metabolism and diabetes control

• Why timing and shared decision-making matter

• How stigma can shape a patient’s willingness to consider surgery

• What long-term follow-up can look like after surgery

• How to talk about weight recurrence with patients without blame

Additional resources

• Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guidelines

• Chapter: Bariatric Surgery: Selection & Pre-operative Work Up: https://utm.guru/uscNZ 

• Chapter: Bariatric Surgery: Surgical Options & Outcomes: https://utm.guru/uscN1  

• Chapter: Bariatric Surgery: Post-Operative Management: https://utm.guru/uscN2  

• Free course: A Comprehensive Overview of Bariatric Surgery for Obesity Management: https://utm.guru/uscN3 

Calibre: Practical Clinical Strategies for Obesity Management

If this episode leaves you thinking about how to strengthen your own approach to obesity care, Obesity Canada’s Calibre course is designed to help.

Calibre is an accredited course for healthcare professionals who want practical, evidence-based tools they can apply in real clinical settings. The course combines self-paced learning with live, interactive sessions, helping learners build confidence in obesity assessment, treatment, communication, and patient-centred care.

The next cohort runs September 3 through October .

Learn more & register: https://utm.guru/uscN4 

Learning objectives

• Apply evidence-based criteria to collaborate with patients in assessing the role of metabolic and bariatric surgery within a comprehensive obesity management plan 

• Analyze the physiological and hormonal changes following metabolic surgery to better manage long-term patient outcomes and establish realistic clinical expectations.

• Evaluate how the stigma framing surgery as the "easy way out" creates systemic barriers to care, and implement communication strategies to dismantle this internalized bias during shared decision-making.

Support Scale Up Your Practice by:

• Sharing this episode with a colleague or team member
• Subscribing on your favourite podcast platform
• Leaving a review to help more listeners find the show

Have a question or a topic you’d like us to cover?

Email us at [email protected]

Disclosures

This episode script was developed using NotebookLM to synthesize complex source materials into a structured educational format. The tool was used to analyze the Canadian Obesity Education Competencies (COECs), the Obesity Canada Strategic Plan, and guest-specific research. Specific prompts were utilized to extract relevant learning objectives, map them to CanMEDS roles, and generate competency-based interview questions.

While NotebookLM assisted in drafting the narrative arc and educational framework, all content has been reviewed, fact-checked, and refined by the podcast hosts and Obesity Canada's clinical experts. This ensures the script aligns with current Clinical Practice Guidelines and authentically represents the lived experience perspective.

🎙️This episode is sponsored by an unrestricted education grant from Eli Lilly Canada

Obesity treatments are creating new opportunities for nutrition support that focuses on meeting nutritional needs rather than simply eating less.

Dr. Michelle Cardel joins us on the podcast to explain how GLP-1 medications are changing nutrition conversations in obesity care, and why the focus must shift from eating less to helping patients stay nourished, supporting their health and healing their relationship with food.

In this episode

• How GLP-1 medications can change appetite, food noise and nutritional needs

• Why nutritional adequacy matters during obesity treatment

• What clinicians should consider when discussing protein, fibre, hydration and eating patterns

• How weight bias can shape nutrition advice and patient experiences

• Why obesity is not a nutrition knowledge gap

• How to make nutrition conversations more individualized, respectful and collaborative

Additional resources

• Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guideline https://utm.guru/urA1X 

• Chapter: Medical Nutrition Therapy: https://utm.guru/urA1Y

• Free Course: A Deep Dive into Medical Nutrition Therapy & Physical Activity: https://utm.guru/urA1Z 

• Harvard Implicit Bias Test: https://utm.guru/urA10 

• Food Noise Questionnaire: https://utm.guru/urA11

Calibre: Practical Clinical Strategies for Obesity Management

If this episode leaves you thinking about how to strengthen your own approach to obesity care, Obesity Canada’s Calibre course is designed to help.

Calibre is an accredited course for healthcare professionals who want practical, evidence-based tools they can apply in real clinical settings. The course combines self-paced learning with live, interactive sessions, helping learners build confidence in obesity assessment, treatment, communication, and patient-centred care.

The next cohort runs September 3 through October .

Learn more & register: https://utm.guru/urA12 

Learning objectives

• Apply patient-centered communication to co-construct individualized medical nutrition therapy plans that respect a patient's lived experience and biological realities.

• Analyze the role of medical nutrition therapy when combined with obesity medications, focusing on strategies to ensure nutritional adequacy and preserve lean muscle mass.

• Evaluate how the traditional nutrition narrative perpetuates systemic weight bias, and implement strengths-based strategies to dismantle this stigma in dietary counseling.

Enjoying the podcast?

• Support Scale Up Your Practice by:
• Sharing this episode with a colleague or team member
• Subscribing on your favourite podcast platform
• Leaving a review to help more listeners find the show

Have a question or a topic you’d like us to cover?

Email us at [email protected]

Disclosures

This episode script was developed using NotebookLM to synthesize complex source materials into a structured educational format. The tool was used to analyze the Canadian Obesity Education Competencies (COECs), the Obesity Canada Strategic Plan, and guest-specific research. Specific prompts were utilized to extract relevant learning objectives, map them to CanMEDS roles, and generate competency-based interview questions.

While NotebookLM assisted in drafting the narrative arc and educational framework, all content has been reviewed, fact-checked, and refined by the podcast hosts and Obesity Canada's clinical experts. This ensures the script aligns with current Clinical Practice Guidelines and authentically represents the lived experience perspective.

🎙️This episode is supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Eli Lilly Canada

What happens when a symptom is explained away too quickly?

For people living with obesity, concerns like fatigue, shortness of breath, poor sleep, or pain are too often viewed through the lens of weight first. That can delay the right questions, the right tests, and the right care.

In this episode, Dr. James Kim joins the podcast for a practical conversation about screening for obesity-related complications without letting weight bias narrow the clinical picture. We explore how healthcare professionals can recognize diagnostic overshadowing, build more consistent screening workflows, and make care safer, more respectful, and more evidence-based for people living with obesity.

In this episode

• Why diagnostic overshadowing can lead to missed or delayed diagnoses for people living with obesity

• How to build practical screening workflows for obesity complications in primary care

• What clinicians should know about MASLD, sleep apnea, insomnia, and cardiometabolic risk

• How equipment and testing limitations can affect the reliability of screening results

• How to talk about obesity complications without blame, shame, or stigma

Additional resources

• Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guideline: https://utm.guru/uq74A 

• Chapter: Assessment of People Living With Obesity: https://utm.guru/uq74B 

• Free course: Obesity Assessment Essentials: https://utm.guru/uq74C 

Calibre: Practical Clinical Strategies for Obesity Management

If this episode leaves you thinking about how to strengthen your own approach to obesity care, Obesity Canada’s Calibre course is designed to help.

Calibre is an accredited course for healthcare professionals who want practical, evidence-based tools they can apply in real clinical settings. The course combines self-paced learning with live, interactive sessions, helping learners build confidence in obesity assessment, treatment, communication, and patient-centred care.

The next cohort runs September 3 through October 7 .

Learn more & register: https://utm.guru/upbeo 

Learning objectives

• Apply evidence-based resources from the Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guidelines to select and interpret appropriate screening tests for obesity-related complications.

• Analyze cardiovascular, metabolic, and mechanical diagnostic results to address knowledge gaps and guide individualized obesity management.

• Evaluate how diagnostic overshadowing and systemic weight bias lead to under-screening or the misinterpretation of symptoms in patients living with obesity.

Enjoying the podcast?

Support Scale Up Your Practice by:

• Sharing this episode with a colleague or team member

• Subscribing on your favourite podcast platform

• Leaving a review to help more listeners find the show

Have a question or a topic you’d like us to cover?

Email us at [email protected]

Disclosures

This episode script was developed using NotebookLM to synthesize complex source materials into a structured educational format. The tool was used to analyze the Canadian Obesity Education Competencies (COECs), the Obesity Canada Strategic Plan, and guest-specific research. Specific prompts were utilized to extract relevant learning objectives, map them to CanMEDS roles, and generate competency-based interview questions.

While NotebookLM assisted in drafting the narrative arc and educational framework, all content has been reviewed, fact-checked, and refined by the podcast hosts and Obesity Canada's clinical experts. This ensures the script aligns with current Clinical Practice Guidelines and authentically represents the lived experience perspective.

🎙️This episode is sponsored by an unrestricted education grant from Eli Lilly Canada.

When obesity assessment starts and ends with BMI, important parts of the patient story can disappear.

In this episode, Dr. Roshan Abraham and Michelle McMillan speak with Dr. Denise Campbell-Scherer about what it takes to assess obesity with more clarity, more context, and more respect for the person seeking care using the Edmonton Obesity Staging System  and the 5A’s Framework.

In this episode

• Why BMI can be part of the clinical assessment, but should never stand in for the whole person

• How the Edmonton Obesity Staging System (EOSS) helps clinicians understand clinical severity, not just body size

• What the 4Ms can reveal about mental, mechanical, metabolic, and monetary drivers of obesity

• How a patient’s story can uncover barriers that a checklist may miss

• Why strength-based counselling can change the experience of care for both patients and clinicians

• How the 5As Team Tools can make obesity assessment more practical in primary care

• What it sounds like to speak with patients about weight concerns without blame, assumptions, or shame

Additional resources

• Free course: Obesity Assessment Essentials https://utm.guru/uqG2K 

• Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guidelines https://utm.guru/uqG2M  

• Chapter: Primary Care and Primary Healthcare in Obesity Management https://utm.guru/uqG2N 

• Edmonton Obesity Staging System https://utm.guru/uqG27 

• Dr. Campbell-Scherer’s 5As Team Tools https://utm.guru/uqG3j 

Calibre: Practical Clinical Strategies for Obesity Management

If this episode leaves you thinking about how to strengthen your own approach to obesity care, Obesity Canada’s Calibre course is designed to help.

Calibre is an accredited course for healthcare professionals who want practical, evidence-based tools they can apply in real clinical settings. The course combines self-paced learning with live, interactive sessions, helping learners build confidence in obesity assessment, treatment, communication, and patient-centred care.

The next cohort runs September 3 through October 7.

Learn more & register: https://utm.guru/uqG4F 

Learning Objectives

• Apply the Edmonton Obesity Staging System (EOSS) to determine the clinical severity of obesity and prioritize individualized management strategies.

• Analyze the mental, mechanical, metabolic, and monetary (4Ms) drivers of a patient's obesity to move beyond BMI-centric assessments.

• Evaluate how utilizing the EOSS framework reduces systemic weight bias by shifting clinical focus from weight loss to meaningful health outcomes and functional stewardship.

• Apply a patient-centered approach to establish values-based goals and assess obesity classification (BMI/waist circumference), while respecting patient readiness and comfort during the initial clinical encounter.

• Analyze the mental, mechanical, metabolic, and monetary (4Ms) framework to comprehensively evaluate adiposity-related complications and root causes of weight gain.

• Evaluate disease severity using the Edmonton Obesity Staging System (EOSS) to prioritize patient-centered management for patients living with obesity

  Have a topic you’d like us to cover?

Email us at [email protected]

Disclosures:

This episode script was developed using NotebookLM to synthesize complex source materials into a structured educational format. The tool was used to analyze the Canadian Obesity Education Competencies (COECs), the Obesity Canada Strategic Plan, and guest-specific research. Specific prompts were utilized to extract relevant learning objectives, map them to CanMEDS roles, and generate competency-based interview questions.

While NotebookLM assisted in drafting the narrative arc and educational framework, all content has been reviewed, fact-checked, and refined by the podcast hosts and Obesity Canada's clinical experts. This ensures the script aligns with current Clinical Practice Guidelines and authentically represents the lived experience perspective.