COVID 19 and Obesity #BDAObesity #obsmukTweetchat

 


 The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect on morbidity and mortality1and affected everyone’s normal daily living. People with severe and complex obesity are at greater risk from the impact of COVID-19 on health2. Consequently, this group have been classed as being one of the more vulnerable groups and people have to take additional precautions. For some, this has included shielding. This has caused practical issues such as access to food and shopping, decreased activity, increased anxiety and also resulted to people being subjected to stigma and weight bias.

 

At a time, when there is a greater need for access and support from weight management services across the spectrum, including specialist weight management and bariatric surgery services, many of the services were also affected. Face to face consultations, whether one to one or group, and bariatric surgery services were stopped. Health care professionals were redeployed to other areas of work. Clinical consultations have begun to resume, guided by local policies across the UK. As face to face consultations and face to face group sessions are no longer taking place, dietitians have started to explore telephone and video calls. This has brought challenges for both dietitians and patients.

 

Bariatric surgery services are especially affected with surgery being halted. This has caused additional stress and anxiety to those on the surgical waiting list as it is not known when surgery will resume. Although resuming bariatric surgery has been classed as important by BOMSS, it was initially missed from the surgical priorities3 by the Royal College of Surgeons. In addition, those patients in the specialist weight management services, for who bariatric surgery may be a treatment option, they are concerned about how this will affect their weight loss journey.

 

The Obesity Strategy for England4 launched by the UK government has focused on a public health slant and individual responsibility. There has been mention of services to those with overweight and obesity but not to those with severe and complex obesity.

 

The British Dietetic Association’s Obesity specialist group is comprised of dietitians working in the area of obesity. We are delighted to host this Tweetchat and explore the impact of COVID-19 on dietitians and other healthcare professionals working in weight management (including specialist weight management), and bariatric and metabolic surgery services and on patients using these services. We welcome an active discussion and have posed the following questions to stimulate debate. Remember to include #BDAObesity and #obsmuk in your responses.

 

References

 

1.       https://www.rcpjournals.org/content/clinmedicine/20/4/e109

2.       https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/excess-weight-and-covid-19-insights-from-new-evidence

3.       https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/coronavirus/surgical-prioritisation-guidance/

4.       https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tackling-obesity-government-strategy

 

Q1. What was the immediate impact/challenge you faced in providing or accessing weight management or bariatric surgery services?

 

Q2. What strategies did you put in place to deal with this impact?

 

Q3. What challenges are you currently facing with regards to service provision or accessing weight management or bariatric surgery services?

 

Q4. What positive learnings have come out of this for you?

 

Q5. From your experience during this pandemic what would you say to yourself if you could go back to sometime in February 2020?

 

 

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