Access to Obesity Care Starts in Primary Care
As an occupational therapist and rehabilitation scientist, I have spent more than 30 years working with people living with obesity. During that time, I have seen tremendous advances in our understanding of obesity as a complex, chronic disease. Yet I have also seen the challenges many individuals face when trying to access evidence-based, compassionate care.
That is why I encourage healthcare professionals, policymakers, and people living with obesity to read The State of Obesity Care in Canada, Obesity Canada's new benchmark report. The report provides a comprehensive assessment of how Canada's healthcare system supports people living with obesity and identifies important gaps that continue to limit access to care. Its findings reinforce many of the issues clinicians, researchers, and patients have been raising for years.
At Bariatric Technologies, we were particularly struck by one central theme: access to obesity care often depends on factors such as geography, income, benefits coverage, and local healthcare capacity rather than clinical need. The report summarizes this challenge with a powerful statement: "Access to primary care does not mean access to obesity care."
Obesity Affects More Than Physical Health
Throughout my career, much of my research and clinical work has focused on how obesity affects everyday function, participation, mobility, and quality of life. While discussions about obesity often focus on weight, patients frequently tell a different story. They talk about difficulties walking comfortably, participating in recreational activities, caring for family members, maintaining employment, managing skin-related complications, and engaging fully in the activities that give life meaning.
This broader understanding of health aligns closely with the report's call for person-centered, interdisciplinary obesity care. Effective obesity care is not simply about achieving weight loss. It is about helping people improve their health, function, independence, and quality of life over the long term.
What We Are Learning From Obesity Care Teams
The team at Bariatric Technologies has spent considerable time learning from obesity clinics and healthcare professionals across Canada. We have been inspired by the dedication of physicians, nurses, dietitians, psychologists, exercise specialists, occupational therapists, and other allied health professionals who provide comprehensive care to patients, often within resource-constrained environments.
The visual below from the Obesity Canada report provides a great overview of the multi-disciplinary approach.
The report highlights both the importance and the challenge of delivering this type of team-based care. Access to specialized obesity services varies considerably across Canada, and many communities lack professionals with obesity-specific training. Sustainable funding for interdisciplinary care, mental health supports, and long-term follow-up remains limited in many regions.
For patients, this can mean very different experiences depending on where they live and which services are available to them. Some individuals gain access to multidisciplinary teams and comprehensive education. Others face years of navigating fragmented referral pathways while their health concerns continue to progress.
Why Primary Care Is the Key
For most Canadians, primary care is the first point of contact with the healthcare system. Family physicians and nurse practitioners play a critical role in identifying obesity as a chronic disease, initiating conversations about treatment, and connecting patients with appropriate supports.
The report specifically recommends integrating obesity assessment, treatment, and referral pathways into primary care and providing healthcare professionals with better training, practical tools, referral mechanisms, and reimbursement models. These recommendations are essential if we hope to reduce barriers to care and ensure that patients receive support earlier in their journey.
Strong primary care pathways also support continuity of care. Obesity is a chronic disease that requires ongoing management, and long-term support is often delivered within community and primary care settings.
The Importance of Long-Term Functional Outcomes
This is where the work of Bariatric Technologies intersects with the recommendations in the report. Many individuals who experience significant weight loss through bariatric surgery, obesity medications, lifestyle interventions, or a combination of approaches continue to face functional challenges related to excess skin and soft tissue.
These concerns can affect mobility, comfort, skin integrity, physical activity, self-management, and participation in everyday activities. They are often discussed in primary care settings long after patients have completed treatment within specialist obesity programs.
Our work is grounded in a simple principle: successful obesity care should ultimately help people live their lives more fully. Improving function, comfort, confidence, and participation in meaningful activities are outcomes that matter deeply to patients and their families.
A Call to Action
The State of Obesity Care in Canada provides an important roadmap for improving obesity care across the country. It challenges all of us, clinicians, researchers, industry partners, advocates, and policymakers, to build a system that recognizes obesity as a chronic disease and provides equitable access to comprehensive, evidence-based care.
I encourage you to read the report, share it with colleagues, and consider how each of us can contribute to improving obesity care in Canada. Better care begins with better pathways, stronger interdisciplinary collaboration, and a continued focus on the outcomes that matter most to people living with obesity: health, function, and quality of life.
healthcare professionals, policymakers, and people living with obesity to read it and consider how we can work together to ensure that every Canadian has access to compassionate, comprehensive, evidence-based obesity care.
- Dr. Mary Forhan, CEO and Co-founder