Rethinking Obesity Care: Reflections from the 2025 OMA Summit

By: Dr. Nina Crowley

The 2025 Obesity Medicine Association (OMA) Summit gathered clinicians, researchers, and industry partners with a shared purpose: to redefine what comprehensive, compassionate care looks like for people living with obesity.

This year’s meeting made one thing clear — we’re entering a new era of obesity care. One defined by incretin-based therapies, metabolic integration, and cross-specialty collaboration that moves beyond silos to treat the whole person.

💡 Why Being in the Room Matters

The week began with the OMA Corporate Council Meeting, where executive and industry leaders explored how to align science, technology, and clinical practice to accelerate progress. Representing seca mBCA North America, I was proud to be part of conversations shaping the future of obesity medicine — from cardiology and hepatology to sleep and women’s health.

These discussions reinforced how far we’ve come in ensuring that obesity is recognized as a chronic disease across specialties. Being there matters because it allows us to:
✅ Elevate the importance of body composition and bioimpedance analysis beyond BMI.
✅ Learn how clinicians in every field are embedding obesity care into their practice.
✅ Reinforce seca’s commitment to advancing science, education, and advocacy in obesity medicine.

❤️ Adiposity, Cardiology, and Sleep Medicine

The opening day centered on the intersection between obesity and cardiovascular health. Experts like Dr. Alison Bailey, Dr. Tammy Kindel, and Dr. Harold Bays emphasized that adipose tissue isn’t merely a passive reservoir—it’s an active endocrine organ driving inflammation, insulin resistance, and cardiometabolic dysfunction.

Key messages from the cardiology sessions:

• Visceral and ectopic fat predict cardiovascular events far better than BMI.
• Addressing adipose tissue dysfunction is central to improving cardiometabolic outcomes.
• Collaborative care between cardiology, endocrinology, and obesity medicine yields better patient outcomes.

Later in the day, Dr. Jeremy McConnell delivered a compelling talk connecting sleep, obesity, and cardiometabolic health. He highlighted the bidirectional relationship between sleep and obesity—where disrupted sleep drives hormonal dysregulation and weight gain, and excess adiposity contributes to sleep apnea and metabolic strain.

Dr. McConnell’s discussion of the SURMOUNT-OSA trial was a highlight: tirzepatide not only produced substantial weight loss but also led to significant improvements in apnea–hypopnea index, hypoxic burden, and daytime sleepiness. These results mark a major step forward in treating sleep apnea as a metabolic condition—an integrated component of obesity care, not an isolated problem.

His message resonated: sleep must become a standard part of the obesity conversation. The future of care requires us to view restorative sleep, metabolic regulation, and weight management as inseparable pillars of health.

• Check out our webinar on: Unlocking Better Outcomes: Where Sleep Health Meets Metabolic health with Dr. Jeremy McConnell https://secambca.com/sleep-metabolic-health-webinar/

Big takeaway: Obesity care is not “just weight.” It’s cardiology. It’s sleep. It’s collaboration.

🔬 Microbiome, MASLD, and Women’s Health

Day two focused on the emerging science connecting metabolism, liver health, and the microbiome.

Dr. Tammy Kindel shared groundbreaking data showing that the gut microbiome contributes 7–10% of total resting metabolic rate, underscoring its role in energy balance and metabolic individuality. Her insights point to new possibilities for microbiome-targeted therapies in long-term weight management and cardiometabolic disease prevention.

Then, Dr. Arun Sanyal reframed MASLD (Metabolic dysfunction–Associated Steatotic Liver Disease) as the hepatic manifestation of systemic metabolic dysfunction—part of the same biological continuum driving obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. His key message: it’s time to move beyond organ-based treatment and embrace a root-cause, cross-specialty model of metabolic medicine.

The day concluded with an inspiring panel on women’s cardiometabolic health, where speakers discussed the nuances of adiposity, ethnicity-specific differences, accessibility of assessment tools, and the importance of addressing muscle function—not just mass—as a marker of strength, metabolic health, and longevity.

🌍 The Era of Integration

By the final day, one message echoed across sessions: the future of obesity medicine is multidisciplinary, data-informed, and empathy-driven.

While incretin therapies have transformed the treatment landscape, experts repeatedly emphasized that medication is just one piece of the puzzle. The true power lies in connecting the care—linking behavior change, nutrition, movement, sleep, pharmacotherapy, and body composition analysis into one cohesive framework.

As fields like cardiology, hepatology, sleep medicine, and women’s health increasingly integrate obesity management into their protocols, collaboration is no longer optional—it’s essential.

Every clinician, regardless of specialty, can strengthen care by learning:
💬 How to use person-first, bias-free language.
🥗 How to have effective, compassionate nutrition conversations.
💪 How to interpret and apply body composition data to personalize care and track outcomes.

✨ Looking Ahead

Leaving the OMA Summit, I’m more motivated than ever to make body composition analysis a standard of care across disciplines. By reframing conversations around visceral adiposity, muscle quality, and cellular health, we can move far beyond BMI to create a new standard of personalized, precision-driven, and compassionate care.

Because the future of obesity medicine isn’t about numbers—it’s about people. And when we connect science, empathy, and collaboration, we unlock the true potential of whole-person health.