ActiveMX Video Library

Hi. I am Dr. Mary Forhan. I am an occupational therapist, and I am the co-founder and CEO of Bariatric Technologies. For more than thirty years, I have worked alongside people living with obesity and navigating significant weight loss — as a clinician, a researcher, and an advocate. And in all that time, one problem kept coming up that almost nobody was solving.

When you lose a significant amount of weight — whether through bariatric surgery, GLP-1 medication, or another path — your body changes in ways that are not always talked about. One of the most common changes is excess skin and tissue. It can affect how you move and how comfortable you are throughout the day.

For years, the only options people were offered were to wait — sometimes for years — for body contouring surgery, or to manage on their own. We started Bariatric Technologies to change that.

We design high-performance, technical base-layer garments that support excess skin and tissue, so people can stay active and comfortable throughout their weight loss journey. Everything we make is built on a simple foundation: respect, care, and compassion. We make garments that do one job well — supporting your body so you can keep moving.

Our first product, the ActiveMX, is a base-layer support garment for men managing excess skin and tissue in the chest, abdomen, buttocks and thighs. It is designed to be worn discreetly under everyday clothing. The garment is made in Canada, produced in small batches with expert sewing technicians. A garment designed for the female body is in development now.

Whether you are someone looking for support, or a clinician looking for a resource for your patients — we are glad you are here. Take a look around, and let us show you what we have been up to.

If you have lost a significant amount of weight, you already know the story does not end when the number on the scale goes down. There is a part of this journey that people rarely warn you about — and that is excess skin and tissue.

It shows up on the abdomen, the chest, the arms, the back, the buttocks, the legs. Sometimes it is a little. Sometimes it is a lot. And here is what I want you to hear, as an occupational therapist who has worked with people through this for decades: what you are experiencing is real, it is common, and it is not just about how things look.

Excess skin and tissue can get in the way. It can make movement harder. It can rub and chafe and cause irritation. It can put strain on your back, your hips, and your knees. It can make you self-conscious. It can even make you afraid of falling when you are active. These are not small things. They affect your daily life.

And there is a cruel irony here. After bariatric surgery, or while on GLP-1 medication, you are strongly encouraged to stay active and build strength — because protecting your muscle matters. But the very skin and tissue left behind can become a barrier to doing exactly that.

For a long time, the only answer offered was surgery — a panniculectomy, or skin resection. Surgery has its place. But it is expensive and it is not accessible to everyone. It carries real risk. And many people are told to wait until their weight has been stable, sometimes for up to five years, before they can even be considered.

So the question we kept asking was simple: what do you do in the meantime?

That is the gap we set out to fill. A support garment will not change your skin, and we would never claim that it does. What it can do is support that excess skin and tissue, reduce its movement, ease chafing, and help you feel more stable and comfortable — so you can keep living your life, and keep moving.

If any of this sounds familiar, you are not alone, and you are not without options. We built Bariatric Technologies for exactly this moment.

I am Dr. Mary Forhan. I am an occupational therapist with more than thirty years of clinical experience, I am a professor at the University of Toronto, and I am the past Scientific Director of Obesity Canada. I want to talk, clinician to clinician, about a part of the bariatric care journey that is often overlooked: the functional impact of excess skin and tissue.

We are all seeing it. The rapid adoption of GLP-1 medications, alongside continued bariatric surgery volumes, means more patients are achieving significant weight loss — and more of them are living with the excess skin and tissue that can follow.

The instinct is to frame this as a cosmetic concern. Clinically, that framing does patients a disservice. Excess skin and tissue — including a Grade 1 to 3 abdominal panniculus — has measurable functional consequences. It restricts mobility. It creates hygiene challenges: chafing, friction, skin breakdown, and infection risk within the skin folds. It places mechanical strain on the back, hips, and knees. And it interferes with the very activity and strength training we are asking these patients to prioritize — precisely when preserving lean muscle mass matters most.

There is also an equity gap worth naming. Men make up roughly twenty percent of bariatric surgery patients, and about thirty-five percent of the population taking GLP-1 type medications — but only around two percent of body-contouring procedures. That is a large group of patients whose functional needs are going largely unaddressed.

And even for surgical candidates, the reality is a wait. Body contouring is expensive, not always accessible, and carries real surgical risk. Many patients are advised to wait until their weight stabilizes — up to five years — before skin resection is considered. So the clinical question becomes: how do we support function and mobility in the interim?

That is where a functional support garment fits into the care pathway. ActiveMX is a below-medical-grade base-layer garment designed to support the abdominal panniculus and other areas of excess skin and tissue. It is not a treatment, and it is not a substitute for surgical or medical care. What it does is provide postural and mechanical support that can help patients stay active and comfortable — throughout the weight-loss journey, while awaiting surgery, or when surgery is declined or not an option. Consider it a partner in the continuum of bariatric care.

There is no formal process required on your end. If this is useful to you, I would encourage you to explore our professional resources — clinically grounded information on the product and where it fits in the care pathway. Thank you for the work you do for these patients.