Right now, there’s a quiet gap in medical training
A medical student sits in on her first patient encounter with someone with a larger body size. She notices the patient hesitating before answering questions, sharing that in the past, she delayed care after being dismissed or judged for her weight. The student wants to respond with empathy and skill — but she hasn’t been trained on how to have that conversation.
This moment is not unique. Each year, thousands of learners enter medicine, nursing, dietetics, psychology, and other health professions across Canada. And yet, education about obesity — a chronic disease that affects nearly one in three Canadian adults — has often been minimal or absent, inconsistent, or rooted in outdated understandings about this chronic disease. Many graduates are left without the tools to talk about obesity without bias, to assess beyond weight alone, or to support patients in meaningful, evidence-based ways.
A new approach for obesity medical education is needed
Despite obesity being one of the most common chronic diseases in Canada, it is still one of the most misunderstood. Many people living with obesity or who have a higher body weight continue to encounter a healthcare system that is unprepared to meet their needs.
For patients, this can mean more than just a frustrating medical appointment. It can mean being misdiagnosed or denied medical care because their symptoms are written off as “just weight.” It can mean avoiding seeking care altogether after years of stigma. It can mean turning to unsafe or unproven diets or exercise practices that put health at risk. And it can mean living with chronic conditions that could have been managed sooner, if only the right support was in place.
For professionals, the gap in education can feel like they’re stepping into patient conversations without having the right vocabulary. They want to support patients, but many were never given the opportunity to learn how to recognize weight bias, clinically diagnose obesity, frame obesity as a chronic disease, or how to tailor obesity care beyond the outdated narrative of ‘eating less and moving more’.
In that gap, even good intentions can fall short — leaving patients feeling unseen and clinicians feeling unprepared. But with the right tools, good intentions can translate into lasting impact.
Building a new standard for medical education for obesity
To address this education gap, Obesity Canada co-led the development of the Canadian Obesity Education Competencies (COEC), a national first that reimagines how obesity education is delivered across health professions.
The Canadian Obesity Education Competencies (COEC) were created through a collaborative process that included educators, researchers, healthcare professionals, students, and people with lived experience. Building on trusted frameworks like CanMEDS, and guided by both Canada’s Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guideline and the Obesity Medicine Education Collaborative, the team developed 13 core competencies and 37 supporting competencies to guide how obesity is taught in health education.
These competencies cover a wide spectrum of topics across health professions: from recognizing and addressing weight bias, to using evidence-based assessment tools, and building personalized care plans that reflect a patient’s goals and realities. Psychological and mental health factors are explicitly included, acknowledging how mental health, medications, and self-esteem can influence health outcomes and care decisions.
What sets this framework apart
These competencies give educators what’s been missing: a roadmap to build curriculum that consistently addresses weight bias, reflects the latest science about obesity, and prepares graduates for real-world practice.
For learners, this means approaching obesity care differently — recognizing weight bias, using language that fosters trust instead of shame, and focusing on improvements in health, quality of life, and dignity rather than numbers on a scale or changing body sizes.
At a broader level, the competencies translate values into teachable skills, ensuring that the next generation of health professionals are equipped not only with knowledge, but with the skills and perspective needed to deliver respectful, evidence-based care.
Looking ahead
The Canadian Obesity Education Competencies are only the starting point. The next step is making sure they come alive in classrooms, clinics, and training programs across the country. That means creating clear benchmarks so educators know when learners are ready to demonstrate key skills, building open-access resources to help programs adopt the framework, and holding institutions accountable by tracking progress over time.
The vision is simple but ambitious: that every healthcare graduate — whether physician, nurse, dietitian, psychologist, or another professional — enters practice prepared to support people living with obesity with dignity, skill, and compassion.
This is the start of a shift in how we prepare Canada’s future health professionals. The challenge now is turning competencies into practice — and that will take commitment from educators, institutions, and decision makers. The blueprint is here. It’s time to put it to work.
Read the full paper
If you’d like to go deeper, read the open-access article here:
Transforming the landscape of obesity education — The Canadian obesity education competencies (Obesity Pillars, 2023)
