What Matters to Patients: Metabolic Health Beyond Weight Loss

Prof Jason Halford is Head of the School of Psychology at the University of Leeds, and President of the European Association for the Study of Obesity (EASO). His research has focused on eating behaviour and weight management, and the role of psychological factors in weight gain and weight loss, with a recent focus on stress and coping.

Dr Fatima Cody Stanford is an obesity medicine physician scientist, educator, and policy maker at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, US. She is a national and international sought after expert in obesity medicine who bridges the intersection of medicine, public health, policy, and disparities.

Dr Lee Kaplan is Director of the Obesity, Metabolism & Nutrition Institute, founding director of the Weight Center at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. 

Dr Kaplan's clinical expertise is in the areas of obesity medicine, gastroenterology and liver disease. The author of more than 150 medical and scientific papers, he has a special interest in the causes and complications of obesity and the development of new and more effective preventive strategies and therapies for this problem. His clinical research is focused on identifying clinically relevant subtypes of obesity, identifying predictors of outcome of obesity therapies, and exploring novel, combination therapies for obesity and its complications. 

Prof Filip Knop is Director of Center for Clinical Metabolic Research at the Gentofte Hospital in Copenhagen, and Professor of Endocrinology, Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. 

His research, for which he has received a number of grants and honors (e.g. named “Rising star” by the European Association for the Study of Diabetes), centers on the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes, obesity, regulation of appetite and food intake, and the therapeutic role of incretins. He is particularly interested in the integrative role of the gut in human (patho)physiology and has authored more than 220 scientific publications. He serves as a referee for several international journals including The Lancet, British Medical Journal, Diabetes, and Diabetologia and he is a member of numerous professional societies and committees.

Susie Birney lives with a food disorder called ARFID; she understands that there is not only one cause for obesity and not one treatment which will always work. Type 2 Diabetes and other co-morbidities have been health barriers for her since her 30’s. Since 2016, Susie has been a patient representative with the ASOI and an Irish representative with ECPO. This led to the start of creating a national patient led organisation ICPO from 2018. She shares her experiences to help to improve the lives of those who live with obesity.