Obesity is a chronic disease that should be covered by health...

“Obesity is a disease characterized by an abnormal increase in body fat, and it has harmful health consequences not only related to the accompanying diseases.” Therefore, “the provision of comprehensive care (…) includes government agencies, health care providers, insurance companies, and health care professionals,” according to The conclusions of a report published yesterday, prepared by a number of doctors, in cooperation with the World Obesity Federation, on “treatment and management of obesity” in the Arab Gulf and Lebanon.According to the report, obesity is the result of a combination of factors, including “genetic predisposition and environmental influences,” noting that the Middle East “has rates of obesity that are among the highest among adults in the world, and is witnessing some of the largest increases in childhood obesity.” Consequently, “no Gulf country is expected to have a more than 20% chance of achieving the World Health Organization’s goal of not increasing the prevalence of childhood obesity by 2025.”

It has been proven, according to the report, that without providing care to obese patients in the Gulf region and Lebanon “several challenges, including insufficient compensation for treatment, lack of available pharmaceutical options, heavy reliance on obesity surgeries, and a lack of obesity education efforts in medical schools and beyond.” Although these challenges are not the same in all countries, the report put forward regional recommendations that could lead to improving efforts to combat obesity, most notably “recognizing obesity as a chronic, progressive and reversible disease,” “encouraging the inclusion of obesity in universal health care coverage,” and “availability Anti-obesity drugs and research into how to improve the provision of obese people with care at the primary care level.
The report prepared by experts from Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, after a meeting of the World Obesity Federation to exchange experiences of clinical obesity and public health experts in the Sultanate of Oman in Muscat, last December, stressed a methodology that must be followed in the treatment of obesity, which Lebanon and most countries lack Region. In the first stage, and at the primary care level, therapeutic intervention is limited by obesity educators, by encouraging lifestyle modification through nutritional prescriptions and physical activity to promote a healthy lifestyle. This would, according to the report, achieve a 5% weight loss after 12-16 weeks. If the goal is not met, “individuals should have access to dietitians and family physicians who have obesity training” to provide them with special diets and more focused methods to improve stress management, sleep regimen and physical activity. After this stage, if 5% weight loss is not achieved after 12-24 weeks, patients who did not respond to treatment at the primary care level are referred to secondary care. They usually have comorbidities and thus require more specialized, high-intensity care to support weight loss and improve their health.

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