Multitasking against obesity
Five specialists in obesity came together at Cambridge’s Royal Sonesta Hotel on Friday for a forum called “Why Is Weight Loss So Hard?” The event was part of the four-day Blackburn Course in Obesity Medicine, sponsored by Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), during which experts from across the globe gathered to discuss one of America’s fastest-growing and most important health issues — the country’s increasing levels of obesity. Complex causes The panelists agreed on the complexity and interacting issues that underlie the crisis. Genetics and environment are just two of the many factors involved. “The world is getting heavier,” said moderator-panelist Lee M. Kaplan, an associate professor at HMS and director of the MGH Weight Center, “and this is not a personal problem of slovenliness or laziness by the patient.” Nadia Ahmad, former HMS instructor of medicine, now director of the Dubai Obesity Medicine Center, agreed: “There’s a lot of...