“I feel invisible.” This is how many older adults with obesity attending an interactive town hall in Wilmington, DE described their feelings about going to their health providers for a weight-related medical problem and feeling stigmatized and ignored due to their size.

The town hall, held at the Wilmington Senior Center on July 11 and attended by a diverse group of older adults, focused on the barriers that people of color face when trying to have a discussion with their health provider about their weight, including not being listened to, not having resources in the doctor’s office that explain the disease of obesity, and limited or no support from members of the care team to guide them in their journey to achieve a healthier weight.

Building on this feedback, the town hall featured Dr. Sheau Ching Chai, an expert in health behavior and nutrition at the University of Delaware, and Dr. Kimberly Rogers, an obesity medicine physician in Wilmington, who described some difficult challenges for clinicians when counseling and treating older adults with obesity. Some key problems are the limitations in using the Body Mass Index (BMI) to diagnose obesity and sarcopenic obesity – the combination of obesity and loss of muscle mass – which affects treatment options.