I haven’t really talked about it much (yet), but I’ve been working with my surgeon’s office to start doing some obesity advocacy with our state legislators. While I’ve been doing some stuff with their office on the support group side, and with their Intro to WLS classes, this sort of thing is very new to me.
Fortunately, I’d recently gotten to know Jeff Hagga (on the left in the photo). Jeff is the President of the WLSFA (I’ll be touching more on them later), but he’s also a board member with the Obesity Action Coalition (OAC). Through some of his stuff on Facebook, I saw some stuff posted about Joe Nadglowski (on the right in the photo) who is the current President of the OAC and does a LOT of advocacy stuff on their behalf.
I’m not sure I realized just how high up the food chain Joe is, so to speak. Cause I’m not sure I would have asked Jeff to put me in touch with him at first if I did. But he is, and I did, and Joe took the time to respond to me and provide me with some very useful information. On top of that, when we were in Vegas for the Meet & Greet, while it was brief (he was a popular guy!) he did take the time to chat with me a bit and made sure to let me know to contact him if I needed more information and such.
Anyways, while sitting in on his talk about obesity advocacy at the Meet & Greet, I came up with the way I wanted to introduce the OAC to all of you as part of my upcoming Dash From Obesity fund raiser (I’m even sorta stealing the name based on the OAC’s Walk From Obesity events). I figured I would do a mini-interview via email and let Joe himself tell you all in his own words what the OAC is and how he fits in to the picture.
What is the OAC and what is their “purpose?”
The OAC is the only nonprofit whose sole focus is helping individuals affected by obesity through education, advocacy and support. Our purpose is to bring together individuals affected by obesity to build a strong coalition of voices to impact positive change in obesity. Our goal is to fight on behalf of the individual affected and arm our members to be proactive educators and advocates.
Who are you (your background?) and what do you do for them?
I am a graduate of the University of Florida and hold a degree in Microbiology and Cell Science. I was recruited to start the OAC after more than a decade with a patient advocacy group focused on individuals with kidney disease. I am currently the President and CEO of the Obesity Action Coalition.
If there was just one thing someone could do to help out the OAC, what would it be?
To become a member of the OAC. Membership in the OAC is critical because the more members we have behind us, the more power we have in Washington, DC, when advocating for those affected by obesity.
I heard you speak recently about advocacy and one of the key points you talked about was being brief – what’s your “elevator speech” that you would use to get your message across to someone you’re just meeting?
My “elevator speech” remarks usually focus on the need to both prevent and treat obesity. I make two major points.
The first is that I remind those I’m meeting with that obesity is similar to other chronic diseases. The reality is that we cannot prevent our way out of the obesity epidemic because 1/3 of our country is already affected by obesity. As a parallel, I mention skin cancer. To prevent skin cancer, individuals are encouraged to wear sunscreen. However, once someone is diagnosed with skin cancer, while they are encouraged to continue sunscreen use, they are also given different interventions or treatments for their skin cancer. The same is not always true for obesity. Once someone is diagnosed, the same prevention techniques continue to be used as the treatment and interventions are rarely discussed. This doesn’t mean that prevention is not important, as we need environments where the healthy choice is the easy choice for people to be successful long-term addressing obesity, but reality is prevention is not treatment.
The second point is the fact that most people don’t have the ability to walk in to their doctor’s office, have an honest discussion about their weight and have their insurance company cover this visit. Almost all insurers exclude obesity counseling as a covered service and if obesity is the greatest threat to our health and economic future (as it is often portrayed in the media) than why would such a visit not be covered?
So thanks Joe… not just for your help in what I’m doing, but for all you do as part of the OAC. I definitely plan on hitting this more in the future. Plus, I’ll be doing similar posts soonly to introduce you to the WLSFA and Turn the Tide Foundation as well.
In the meantime, don’t forget, the Dash From Obesity fund raising starts June 1 and getting an OAC membership is a great way to help out the OAC and it’s eligible for the prize drawings.
photo credit: bethography
Jeff is on the left and Joe is on the right :-)
whoops, I was gonna use a different pic, then changed it and forgot to change that part.. thanks Lynnda!