ObesityHelp.com was founded in 1998 as a peer support community to help those faced with life threatening morbid obesity. As of January 2013, over 700,000 people have become members on ObesityHelp.com seeking help to find solutions and support.

Demographic Information:
• 86% Female, 14% Male
• Average age, 38 years old
• Average weight is 273 lbs.
• 40% are Pre-Op. / 60% are Post-Op.
• 700 thousand members
• 15 thousand visitors per day
• 17 million page views per month

ObesityHelp for Professionals is a direct way for bariatric professionals to connect with, help and support this long standing and growing community. When people talk about their bariatric surgeon, others listen. When your patients talk about you—in the grocery store, at PTA meetings, on the telephone, on message boards, in email—their words help shape your public image. Word-of-mouth recommendations are potentially the most valuable resource for generating new patients. Now, the Internet enables your patients to spread the word faster and farther than ever before. You can help more patients than ever before, while maximizing the reach and effectiveness of your image and expanding your marketing potential by embracing the power of a dedicated bariatric support community.

Establish your online presence here on ObesityHelp.com and encourage your patients to be active participants. Let them know how much you appreciate their openness and honesty about their experiences with your practice—especially when they have found success and excellent care—and show them where to go to share that information with others. Your patients are enjoying success, and they can be your greatest resource in extending the possibility of health and success to others.

You should know that, membership is free to ObesityHelp members and grants the user access to resources including:

• Over 300 message boards: Members can participate on a variety of message boards including surgery type specific, surgery date specific, location based, medical condition.  There are also weight loss specific message boards such as recipes, fitness and nutrition.
• Health Tracker: Your patients can log right into their ObesityHelp account and keep track of their weight and body measurements, with this they can also create a ticker.  Tickers are really popular on the message boards and our members love to add them to their signatures to celebrate their progress and what they are working towards. With Health Tracker, they can also track their water consumption, nutrition intake and exercise each day. For band patients, they can also track their band fills which includes the fill volume and their satiety level.
• OH Groups: The groups system is a place where members and professionals can join or create their very own OH Groups. OH Group support communities are run, managed and operated by each Group owner(s). They can be created as open to the public or private. Think of OH Groups as a way to personalize a support community based on location, surgery type, surgeon, center or any topic that people may be passionate about!
• Member Profiles with Blogging & Photo Albums: Long term blogging and tracking has been known to be helpful with motivation and accountability. Some OH members like to use their blog to track the entire process from pre-op to after surgery including their daily life changes.
• Goal System: Every day we see our community rising to the challenge and overcoming obstacles. We created a Goal system so that they could set, plan for and keep achieving the goals that are most important to them.