The global Commission on Clinical Obesity has just published a proposal calling for a change to how we define and treat obesity. The commission of 58 medical professionals from organizations including the Cardiometabolic Health Congress, Harvard Medical School, and the World Obesity Federation, asserts in the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal that the current definition of obesity is not nuanced enough to cover the spectrum of the condition and the different treatments needed for individual cases.
The way obesity is diagnosed now either leads to ineffective treatments for those who most need it, or unnecessary treatment for those who don’t, says Dr. Francesco Rubino, commission chair and a bariatric surgeon at King’s College Hospital in London. As it stands, obesity diagnoses are mostly used as a “risk assessment,” Rubino says, meaning they reflect probability of risk for other diseases, not the current state of someone’s health.
