Food As Medicine Update to highlight obesity management

Medical approaches to body weight and obesity have changed dramatically in recent years. For people living with, or at risk for, weight-related health conditions in particular, anti-obesity medications and new ways of thinking about weight and stigma have altered treatment options across the lifespan.

In turn, patients and families are turning to doctors and health professionals more than ever for advice on how to manage weight — hence the value of the University of Toronto’s Food as Medicine Update, a continuing education symposium for health-care providers, which will run on November 13 with a focus on obesity.

“We are in an unprecedented time because we have incredible anti-obesity medication, and surgical and lifestyle options, to address obesity and impact people’s health and the broader health-care system,” says John Sievenpiper, symposium chair and a professor at U of T’s Joannah & Brian Lawson Centre for Child Nutrition.

“Patients are asking about these interventions, so it’s important for clinicians to understand what’s happening in this field,” says Sievenpiper, who is also a staff physician at St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto and nutrition theme lead for U of T’s MD program, as well as a professor of nutritional sciences and medicine.

This year’s Food as Medicine Update brings together experts and clinicians to discuss new guidelines for weight management in paediatric patients, new GLP-1 drugs for obesity management, as well as practical approaches to reduce stigma in clinical and public health settings, among other topics.

One important discussion, says Sievenpiper, will be around the difference between high weight and obesity. A person’s body fat can be a risk factor for health problems, but high weight on its own isn’t an indicator of health; yet, people with high weight can experience stigma when seeking health care.

Speakers at the conference, including Amanda Raffoul, will address this issue in talks on weight, body image and stigma.

“I approach the topic from an eating disorders and prevention lens, so I advocate that we not focus at all on body weight when we enact public policy that promotes healthy dietary patterns,” says Raffoul, an assistant professor of nutritional sciences at U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

“At the conference, I'll talk about how a weight-neutral approach to public policy and public health nutrition can help inform clinical practice, so clinicians can consider the use of weight-neutral frameworks when working with their patients.”

These frameworks focus on behaviours of healthy eating and healthy movement, rather than appearance, and aim to reduce stigma for people who have higher body weights.

Another highlight of the Food as Medicine Update is the Rundle-Lister Lectureship in Transformative Nutritional Medical Education, awarded each year to a clinician-researcher for outstanding contributions to the role of nutrition in patient care.

Michael Lean, professor of human nutrition at the University of Glasgow and NHS consultant in medicine at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, will deliver this year’s Rundle-Lister Lecture. He will focus on the Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial, which showed that sufficient weight loss could lead to remission of Type 2 diabetes, helping transform approaches to treating the disease.

Other speakers include:

• Jill Hamilton (paediatrics, endocrinology, Temerty Medicine and The Hospital for Sick Children)
• Stasia Hadjiyannakis (paediatrics, University of Ottawa)
• Laurie Clark (clinical psychology, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario)
• Stuart Phillips (kinesiology, McMaster University)
• Sanjeev Sockalingam (psychiatry, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health)
• Julie Lovshin (endocrinology and metabolism, Temerty Medicine)

Sievenpiper hopes that clinicians who attend will get a thorough update on a fast-moving area of medicine, so they can provide the latest information and best care to their patients.

“We now have the medicines and the lifestyle interventions that can actually target obesity and result in real changes and clinical outcomes,” says Sievenpiper. “We don’t just have to focus on prevention as we did in the past. Clinicians can really help improve the lives of our patients who are living with obesity today.”

The Food as Medicine Update is hosted by the department of nutritional sciences, the Joannah & Brian Lawson Centre for Child Nutrition, and Continuing Professional Development at the University of Toronto.

Food as Medicine will take place on Thursday, November 13 from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., virtually and in person at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, 209 Victoria St., 2nd Floor. Register here.