A Note from the Director The general obesity conversation is usually dominated by narrow discussion of what food is bad to eat or which diet is the new Rosetta stone of success for weight loss. It does this because the blame is directed at individual behaviour. The facts are that 80% of the population has a genetic predisposition to obesity. The number of obese people has doubled in the past 20 years but the genetics have not changed at all. The World Health Organization describes obesity as the number one non-communicable disease in the world. Countries like Canada have now declared obesity as a disease, which has the effect of re-shaping public policy and directing social medical assistance to sufferers of this disease. (E.g. patients with a BMI of >40 now receive publicly funded bariatric surgery) EveryBody Matters departs from the usual social commentary and gets into the gritty truth about obesity. We do that by talking to a wide range of experts with specific areas of expertise. Organizations such as the World Obesity Federation, Canadian Obesity Network, Obesity Australia and John's Hopkins are contributing their expertise to the obesity conversation. EveryBody Matters will examine the social, medical and political facts about obesity. What are the causes, the injustices and changes we need to make as a society to abate and aid a third of our population with their struggle to live healthier, more fulfilling lives. For example: Many people in our research had very strong views around the economics of assisting overweight people. The economic reality is that health costs are set to rise by more than 17% due to obesity (WHO), for conditions related to obesity but not for weight loss treatment. Productivity of obese people is set to reduce by 33% due to hiring bias (not ability to do the job). The social effect of this causes increased anger and bias toward overweight people, becoming a vicious cycle. EveryBody Matters will show the economic pragmatism of early intervention treatment by publicly funded medicine being the most cost effective solution. The hard part of the conversation is around fat versus fit. Not everyone who is overweight is unfit and not everyone who is thin is healthy but EveryBody deserves medical treatment without judgment and without bias.

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