A bariatrician is a licensed physician who has received special training in obesity medicine–the medical treatment of obesity and its associated conditions. Bariatricians address the obese patient with a comprehensive program of proper diet and nutrition, appropriate exercise, lifestyle changes and, when indicated, the use of prescription anti-obesity medications and other appropriate medications. While any licensed physician may offer a medical obesity treatment program to patients, members of the Society have been exposed, through an extensive continuing medical education (CME) program, to specialized knowledge, tools and techniques to enable them to design specialized medical obesity treatment programs tailored to the needs of individual patients and to modify the programs, if needed, as the treatment progresses. Physician-supervised medical obesity treatment programs support overweight and obese patient’s overall health, since these frequently are accompanied by other medical conditions (e.g., type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cancer). An obesity medicine physician is trained to detect and treat these conditions, which might otherwise go undetected and untreated by a non-medical weight-loss program.
