By Sarah Le Brocq
Founder, All About Obesity
At MyNutriWeb, we are passionate about creating conversations that move beyond simplistic narratives around weight and health. During our symposium, More than Medications: Optimising Weight Loss Drug Outcomes in Practice, we heard powerful insights from people with lived experience alongside healthcare professionals working in obesity care.
One of those voices was Sarah Le Brocq, founder of All About Obesity. Sarah shared her personal story of living with obesity, the impact of weight stigma, and why compassionate, evidence-based care matters so much. In this blog, Sarah reflects on her journey, the realities behind obesity, and why obesity care must move beyond weight alone.
You can also watch Sarah’s full presentation on demand as part of our symposium, More than Medications: Optimising Weight Loss Drug Outcomes in Practice.
For most of my life, I believed my body was something that needed “fixing.” I spent years feeling like I didn’t fit in, constantly trying to lose weight and believing that if I could just become smaller, happier would follow.
I was only 12 or 13 years old in one of the photos I recently shared during a presentation, yet I already felt ashamed of my body. Looking back now, it is heartbreaking to realise how young I was when those feelings started.
By the age of 16, I had started my first severely restrictive 800-calorie diet. And like so many people living with obesity, that was only the beginning.
Over the years, I tried almost everything imaginable:
- Weight Watchers
- Slimming World
- Atkins Diet
- Cambridge Diet (VLCD)
- LighterLife (VLCD)
- Hypnosis
- Counselling
- Orlistat – (Prescription only medicince)
- Intense gym programmes
- Bariatric surgery referrals
- Weight management medications including liraglutide, semaglutide and tirzepatide
I even appeared on a Sky TV weight loss programme, where I completed an Olympic-distance triathlon and deadlifted 100kg. By society’s standards, I was doing everything “right.”
But here is the truth that many people do not understand:
Losing the weight was NOT the answer.
Even after significant weight loss, I still hated the way I looked. I still felt like I needed to lose more. And when the weight started creeping back on, I felt like a failure.
The years that followed became some of the darkest of my life. I felt out of control….
When I finally asked my GP for help, I was told there was nothing they could offer me. There were times when I genuinely did not want to be here anymore and all because of how I looked and how I felt about myself.
What changed things for me was starting to ask deeper questions.
I refused to believe this was simply about “lack of willpower” or personal failure.
That journey led me to the science of obesity.
Research from experts such as Dr Kevin Hall a doctor in the US, helped me understand something life-changing: the body biologically defends its weight. After weight loss, the body adapts by burning fewer calories and increasing biological pressures that make weight regain more likely. This is not weakness. This is physiology.
Yet despite the science, society still largely treats obesity as a personal failing.
We continue to reduce obesity to simplistic messaging around “eat less and move more,” despite the reality that obesity is a complex chronic disease influenced by biological, psychological, social and environmental factors.
And alongside that complexity comes stigma.
Weight stigma is everywhere, in healthcare, in education, in workplaces, in media, and often in everyday conversations. It teaches people living in larger bodies that they are somehow “less than.” It creates shame, isolation and self-blame.
In my view, weight stigma remains one of the last socially acceptable forms of discrimination.
Today, my relationship with weight and health looks very different.
Yes, medications have played a role in my journey, but what matters most to me is not simply the number on the scales. It is the improvements in my quality of life.
I have more energy.
I move more because I want to, not because I am punishing myself.
I wild swim.
I do Reformer Pilates.
The constant “food noise” that dominated my mind for years has quietened.
I can play more actively with my daughter.
I feel freer.
This is why obesity care must move beyond weight alone.
People living with obesity deserve compassionate, evidence-based, wraparound care, not shame, judgement or simplistic assumptions.
Because obesity is not a moral failure.
And I genuinely believe that in 10 or 20 years’ time, we will look back at the way society treated people living with obesity and be utterly horrified.
Hear Sarah’s presentation in our symposium More than Medications: Optimising Weight Loss Drug Outcomes in Practice
