How the Yale Center for Weight Management Offers Complete Care

Many people struggle to maintain a “healthy” weight, often blaming themselves for a perceived lack of willpower or other faults.

But weight management is challenging, for many reasons, including the basic biology of our bodies, which evolved to maximize calorie intake and store fat for energy—a necessity for our ancestors who faced food scarcity.

“The problem is, in the modern environment, calories are available almost all the time,” says Wajahat Mehal, MD, DPhil, co-director of the Yale Center for Weight Management. “So we have to fight these instincts of trying to get as many calories as possible.”

There isn’t a single way to help people manage their weight, just like there isn’t one way that obesity affects every person. At the Center for Weight Management, Dr. Mehal and his co-directors, Ania Jastreboff, MD, PhD, and John Morton, MD, MPH, are part of a team that offers personalized and comprehensive medical and surgical obesity treatment.

“We have a unique setting to treat patients with obesity because we have the entire continuum of care under one roof,” Dr. Morton says.

That continuum, Dr. Mehal says, includes obesity medicine specialists, bariatric surgeons, a nutritionist, an exercise physiologist, and pharmacists.

And while body weight is discussed and measured, the true goal is long-term health, as obesity can have numerous negative effects on one’s health.

“When we treat obesity, we’re treating the underlying cause or main contributor to hundreds of other diseases,” Dr. Jastreboff says.

Most importantly, patients should know they aren’t alone, Dr. Morton adds.

“This is not a problem that’s for you to solve by yourself,” he says. “Where else in medicine do you try to self treat? This is the time and the opportunity to come forward, and allow us to help you to get to your desired state.”

Learn more about the Yale Center for Weight Management in the video above.