The Role of Health Systems in Obesity Management and Prevention: Problems and Paradigm Shifts

This paper provides an overview of a new section of Current Obesity Reports, called Health Services and programs. This new section seeks to better understand the problems within health systems around obesity management and prevention and to discuss the latest research on solutions. There are few health system issues that are quite as controversial as obesity and there remain several key problems inherent within existing obesity management and prevention approaches that necessitate the adoption of new paradigms and practices. Beginning with articles on addressing weight bias and stigma in health professional training, promoting new models of weight management provision, reviewing the role of regulation and generating an understanding of obesity through a complex systems lens, this new section will encourage readers to better address the challenging problems in obesity management and in doing so, overcome the ‘paradigm paralysis’ that has characterized the last few decades of obesity research and practice.