HEALTHCARE · REPORT
Obesity. The questions we ask
The science has moved on. Has the system?
For the first time, medicines exist that reliably produce levels of weight reduction and broader health benefits that decades of previous treatment could not. Diagnostic frameworks are being rewritten, policy attention is rising, and health systems are being forced to decide what they will fund, and for whom.
The hardest questions are no longer mainly scientific. They now belong to health systems and policy, to access and economics, and to the wider ecosystem in which obesity is defined, treated and paid for.
This publication explores six questions shaping the future of obesity care.
01
What we measure
How should obesity be defined in an era when BMI is no longer enough?
02
What we can access
Can health systems afford innovation while ensuring equitable access to care?
03
What drives obesity
How should policy respond to the social and commercial determinants of health?
04
Who we treat
How can stigma, lived experience, and patient voices reshape obesity care?
05
What we automate
Where can digital health and AI genuinely improve outcomes, and where are their limits?
06
What we inherit
Why has the double burden of malnutrition persisted despite decades of awareness?
