The weight-loss wall
Our Experts Weight loss
Dr. Tim Church, MD, MPH, PhD, Wondr Health Chief Medical Officer, dives deep into the ‘weight-loss wall’, a barrier preventing millions in our population from accessing essential resources for well-being.
The prevention of weight gain and clinical weight loss occupies a unique place in the realm of medicine—but this is not a fact to be celebrated. Within this context, there exists a wall that separates proven treatments from most American adults who could greatly benefit from them.
On one side of the wall are well-established and effective avenues of interventions, such as nutrition, behavioral skill development, pharmacology, and surgical procedures. On the other side of the wall stand 75% of American adults, representing a vast demographic that could gain significantly from access to these treatments. The cinderblocks creating this wall are factors such as restricted access to care, prohibitive costs, inherent biases, a scarcity of health-care practitioners specializing in obesity, perpetuation of misinformation through social media, and disruptors in the supply chain, among others.
It is challenging to pinpoint another medical specialty where such solutions are available, yet a significant portion of the population remains deprived of these possibilities. Each day, this barrier remains intact, tens of millions of Americans are left without the essential care they require and deserve.
At Wondr Health, we are committed to transforming the health of individuals, workplaces, and the world around us and to breaking down this wall, ensuring that clinically proven solutions for weight management are accessible to all, because everyone is worthy of better health.
