What to Expect at a Medical Weight Management Meeting

Recently, a patient posted on the Penn Medicine Weight Loss Facebook page:

“What goes on at a medical weight management meeting at Penn?”

Medical weight management meetings are meetings for people who have chosen to have weight-loss surgery at Penn in Philadelphia.

The Penn Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Program's pre-operative nutrition screening is focused on changing patients' eating behaviors and food selection practices. This helps patients adjust to their post-operative diet and achieve the best results possible from bariatric surgery.

During this meeting, a dietitian from the program evaluates patients' weight loss history and current eating and exercise behaviors using a weight and diet history questionnaire. Patients also keep a food diary to record their daily intake and learn the principles of post-operative gastric bypass, including dietary progression, protein and fluid requirements, and lifelong vitamin and mineral supplementation.

The medical weight management meeting includes the following:

• A Penn registered dietitian who reviews your current eating patterns and provides nutrition counseling. The dietitian also helps prepare you for the eating behaviors and dietary changes required to be successful after bariatric surgery.
• A Penn nurse practitioner who evaluates your current medical studies and reviews the results with you. You are asked to review your nutrition binder prior to the meeting and bring it with you to your visit.

Remember: You must have insurance approval to schedule weight-loss surgery. In fact, insurance may require three to six months of medical weight management before your surgery depending on your insurance plan.

Get More Information About Weight-loss Surgery at Penn

Learn if bariatric surgery is right for you by attending a free weight-loss information session about the Penn Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Program.

Learn more about weight-loss surgery at Penn at this free session, and meet physicians and team members from the Penn Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Program.

Register for this free weight-loss information session.