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I last wrote about the Ob*sity Action Coalition (OAC) in 2022 and you can read about their history in that post here. It’s time for an update.
Content note - the links in the rest of this post may contain blatant and furtive weight stigma so click with caution. Also, indented text is from OAC marketing and thus also contains weight stigma, you can skip it and still get the gist of the article.
The short story is that this is an organization that claims to be a patient advocacy non-profit for higher-weight people but is predominantly funded by, and acts as a lobbying and marketing arm for, the weight loss industry. The OAC wields a multi-million dollar budget to infiltrate and influence the public, the healthcare system, and the government of behalf of weight loss industry priorities. Their COO credits the organization with getting simply existing in a higher-weight body, regardless of health status, considered a “disease” and compares existing in a higher-weight body to a house on fire. (There is, of course, no shame in having a disease of any kind, it’s just that simply existing in a larger body doesn’t remotely qualify and comparing someone’s existence to a burning house does not support the organization’s claims about wanting to end weight stigma.)
The main issue with the OAC is that they are claiming to represent higher-weight people and I’ve personally been in situations where people were fooled by them into thinking that they represent weight inclusive higher-weight people, so I thought it was about time to check back in with them. Before we talk about who is funding them, let’s talk about what they are doing.
A significant part of their current work involves co-opting the concepts of weight-neutral care and anti weight stigma work to be about losing weight and pushing for insurance coverage for diet drugs and other weight loss interventions and they are absolutely SHAMELESS about it.
A friend of mine who has been a well-known weight-inclusive speaker, author, and podcaster for YEARS received the following email:
We admire your work on [your podcast], and your advocacy for intuitive eating and anti-diet culture aligns beautifully with the Ob*sity Action Coalition’s mission. For the Your Weight Matters National Convention, we’d love to invite you to join as a media partner or feature a guest from our powerful speaker lineup.
Our Chair, Nikki Massie, is a Baltimore-based speaker with lived experience who would bring a compelling voice to your audience, along with expert insight from Dr. Robyn Pashby on body image and mental health.
Let us know if this is of interest — we’d love to collaborate!
Obviously she turned them down flat, but let’s break this down.
They are trying to convince (mislead?) someone who they KNOW is committed to weight-inclusive, anti-diet culture to partner with and promote an event whose sponsored Google marketing blurb is “Ob*sity is a complex disease. Learn more about how your weight impacts your health.” My friend’s work doesn’t “align beautifully” with the OAC, in fact it doesn’t align even a little bit. They are mutually exclusive paradigms! I’d bet all the money in my pockets that the OAC knows that and they are hoping their targets don’t.
“Our Chair, Nikki Massie, is a Baltimore-based speaker with lived experience”
This is another common tactic the OAC and organizations like them use, calling an (at least temporarily) former higher-weight person, or a higher-weight person who is committed to weight loss culture, someone with “lived experience.” It’s not that these folks don’t have “lived experience” by some definition, and of course they are entitled to their choices and beliefs. They are also allowed to be leaders in non-profits that take money hand over fist from the weight loss industry and work to spread the claim that existing in a higher-weight body is a disease, the treatment is weight loss, and it’s worth risking higher-weight people’s lives and quality of life in attempts to “treat” their body size using the interventions sold by the companies that give their organization all that money.
The issue here is that the OAC and other such orgs send these folks (who typically use weight-loss industry driven, pathologizing language like “person with ob*sity” or “person affected by ob*sity” to describe themselves) out into the world using marketing that suggests that they are representing what constitutes lived experience of higher-weight people who want to dismantle weight stigma starting with its root - which is the pathologization of body size that the OAC works so hard to perpetuate.
In reality, the way that these OAC (and other similar organization) representatives are described and promoted at best ignores, and at worst attempts to erase, the lived experience of higher-weight people who are dedicated to size acceptance, fat* activism, weight-inclusive health, and anti weight stigma work that calls for an end of the attempted eradication of higher-weight people, rather than (regardless of intention) being part of what Dr. Rachel Fox calls the Anti-Ob*sity Assemblage.
In the DEI world, it is typically expected that someone who is billed as having “lived experience” is coming from a place of affirming their identity, so OAC marketing of these speakers can also (whether intentionally or not) mislead conferences, podcasters and others who book them into believing they are booking/hearing from someone from the weight-inclusive and/or fat activism community and instead they are getting someone invested in, and essentially marketing, the exact opposite.
In the case of the convention speakers in their marketing email, Ms. Massie owns a business called “Bariatric Foodie” that, per her LinkedIn was “Created, from the ground up, a website that engages, educates and informs people in the weight loss surgery community by creating stellar photo, video, and social media content, serving as a brand ambassador, publishing books and e-books and creating successful email lead generation and reader retention campaigns.” Again, she is allowed to do this, my concern is that the marketing that is used by the OAC to promote speakers like this should be clear that the organization receives massive funding from the weight loss industry, and that the speakers do NOT represent the weight-inclusive health community or the fat activism community (I imagine it would be too much to ask that they also be honest that these communities do not align with the OACs views on weight, health, or weight stigma and its eradication.)
As far as speaker Dr. Robyn Pashby and her “insights” on body image and mental health (her Facebook claims that she is an “Expert in Ob*sity, Trauma Informed Care, Disordered Eating, and Internalized Weight Bias” which are some diametrically opposed concepts but we’ll leave that as a topic for another day.) The talks she gave at the convention conflated mental health and mental healthcare with weight loss in ways that do serious harm. Another one of the talks she gives for the OAC is called “Weight and Grief” which appears to try to make the grieving process about weight and weight loss. The first post on her Facebook right now is her on a podcast talking about “The Stigma of Living with ob*sity” which makes is sound like someone has a roommate who doesn’t do the dishes and embarrasses them in front of guests rather than simply living in a larger body.
The OAC specializes in co-opting and trying to overshadow the work that fat activists and liberationists and weight-inclusive health advocates are doing to actually dismantle weight stigma (which includes de-pathologizing higher-weight bodies) in order to promote a fundamentally anti-fat worldview (ie: we don’t want to stigmatize fat people, we just want to eradicate them!). Dr. Pashby also alludes on her Facebook to her “public speaking journey” which is a reminder that the OAC is part of the trend of thin(ner) people speaking for and/or over weight-inclusive/fat-positive fat people.
In case you were wondering, here are the convention sponsors
Image Description: Your Weight Matters National Convention
Thank you for supporting Your Weight Matters National Convention
Platinum: Lilly and Novo Nordisk, Gold: Boehringer Ingelheim, Silver: Amgen, Rhythm, Bronze: Boston Scientific, Currax, Genentech, Seca, Wave, Patron: Bariatric Advantage, Zealand Pharma
I dug up the Sponsor and Marketing Opportunities Brochure. Those who would give the OAC money for the convention were promised, in part, an audience of “Individuals who are seeking options for weight loss and health improvement” and “pre and post bariatric surgery patients” and “non-surgical weight loss patients” with 65% of attendees “Patients/everyday individual concerned with weight and health”
The Platinum sponsorship was $100,000, Gold was $75,000, Silver was $50,000, Bronze was $35,000 and Patron was $5,000. The more expensive the sponsorship, the more opportunities to advertise to the attendees.
When it comes to advocating for the weight loss industry from my point of view the OAC operates much like the Partners in Pain astroturf organization that was created by Purdue pharma in their quest to sell as much Oxycontin as possible. They claim to be an “advocacy organization” but are predominantly funded by the pharmaceutical industry and seeking to influence the patient, provider, and government/policy level on behalf of their pharmaceutical and medical device funders.
“Partners Against Pain is an alliance of patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers working together to alleviate unnecessary suffering by leading efforts to advance standards of pain care through education and advocacy.”
“The Ob*sity Action Coalition (OAC) is a more than 85,000 member-strong national nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of individuals affected by ob*sity through education, advocacy and support.”
At the patient and provider level, they try to convince people that being higher-weight is a disease (despite the fact that it is weight loss industry marketing that just doesn’t hold up to scientific scrutiny) using social media, publications, events, and medical education (remember the time the OAC, that is supposedly an expert on weight stigma, hosted a nursing Grand Rounds called “Ob*sity: The Elephant in the Room”? I do.) At the policy/government level it’s about a relentless push for weight loss industry priorities. The front page of the OAC’s website is currently dedicated to the “Treat and Reduce Ob*sity Act” which they openly admit is a bill to expand insurance coverage for weight loss interventions. They’ve been lobbying for versions of this bill at the federal level and in as many states as they can.
So with that context, let’s look at who is giving them money.
A reminder that you can find the 2022 information here for comparison.
2025 numbers
In 2022 they had Corporate Sponsors and their Chairman’s Council. This year both are blended into the “Corporate Council” We’ll look at that first, then their “Sponsored Membership” program, and finally their tax filings.
The companies that are bolded sell weight loss or weight loss related products
Spoiler Alert - they are all bolded!
Platinum (More than $100,000 annually)
Boehringer Ingelheim
Eli Lilly
Novo Nordisk
NOTE: This category is NOT companies who donate $100,000, it’s companies that donate MORE THAN $100,00 - it would be nice if they had some transparency about the actual amounts especially since all three of these companies also gave a bundle to the convention and in 2022 Novo was giving over $500k!)
Gold (Between $50,000 and $99,999 annually)
American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery
Amgen
Pfizer
Potomac Currents
Silver ($10,000 to $49,999 annually)
AstraZeneca
Boston Scientific
Currax Pharmaceuticals
DEXCOM
Elite Research Network
Genentech
INTUITIVE
Kailera Therapeutics
Madrigal Pharmaceuticals
Medtronic
Metsera
Nestle Health Science
Regeneron
Rhythm Pharmaceuticals
Seca Medical Body Composition
Structure Therapeutics, Inc
Wave Life Sciences
Zealand Pharma
Bronze ($5,000 to $9,999 annually)
Biohaven Pharmaceuticals
Carmot Therapeutics
Geisinger Healthcare System
KVK Tech
Rocky Mountain Associated Physicians
Wondr Health
Patron ($1,000 to $4,999 annually)
Bariatric Advantage
Billings Clinic
Click Therapeutics
ConscienHealth
Fay Nutrition
FlyteHealth
Gainesville Medical Ob*sity Specialty Clinic
Healthy Interactions
ProCare Health
ProSciento
The Ob*sity Society
Weight in Gold Wellness
Woman’s Hospital
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20251019041124/https://www.obesityaction.org/corporate-council/
Sponsored Membership Program
This one is some really something - it allows healthcare providers and organizations (however well intentioned, and including those that benefit from the OAC’s lobbying efforts) to artificially boost OAC membership which gives it more clout in its attempts to influence patients, providers, and policy.
They explain:
The OAC’s Sponsored Membership Program is a unique program that allows physicians and/or hospitals/institutions to purchase OAC Community+ Membership for each of their patients at a discounted rate of $10/each (Community+ Membership is typically $25). This program was started in 2009 and has since welcomed more than 40 practices from 19 states to participate. This program alone has been responsible for better connecting more than 30,000 patients in their care and the efforts of the OAC!
I would describe this less as “unique” and more as “ethically questionable” but hey, that’s just me. For reference, the OAC only claims a membership of 85,000 people (they used to claim to “represent” 93 million people “affected by ob*sity” but they seem to be backing away slowly from that extremely questionable claim) which means that if these 30k+ people are current members then more than 35% of their membership were signed up, possibly without their consent if not against their will (if I ever found out that some healthcare provider or practice made me a “sponsored member” of this …organization I would raise absolute hell.)
They go on:
Community+ Membership provides patients with a wide variety of exclusive benefits, designed to uniquely connect them in issues pertaining to their health, ongoing care and well-being. When you purchase Community+ Membership for your patients, you can expect that they’ll be a part of a Community that believes in providing evidence-based education on all issues relating to health and ob*sity, fighting to improve access to care and the elimination of weight bias, and elevating the conversation of weight and its impact on health. Community+ Membership offers the maximum amount of support for the individual affected by ob*sity no matter where they are on their journey with weight and health. We make this program flexible and easy to implement, and it is designed to be as least time intensive on your staff as possible.
Let’s translate this: You can sign your patients up to be indoctrinated with messaging about weight that is driven by the weight loss industry.
Next let’s take a look at their tax filings through ProPublica’s non-profit explorer
As a 501(c)3 nonprofit, the OAC is required to file a form 990.
The most recent filing is 2023 where we learn that of their $2,001,050 total claimed revenue, $1,771,609 (or 88.5%) was from contributions with the remaining 11.5% coming from “program services.”
Their total salaries, other compensation, employee benefits total $1,121,444
That said, they only list two people as being paid:
Joseph F. Nadglowski Jr, the CEO had total compensation of $265,725 with “Estimated amount of other compensation from the organization and related organizations” at $17,205
James T Zervious (their Chief Operating Officer who describers his relationship with his body as a “daily struggle”) claims a salary of $146,827 with “Estimated amount of other compensation from the organization and related organizations” of an additional $6,514.
The remaining money is listed as “other salary and wages”
Interestingly, back in Part I, they say they have 90,000 volunteers
Schedule B of a form 990 is the schedule I was most interested in, it is the Schedule of Contributors where the nonprofit lists their contributor information and amounts. Unfortunately, some non-profits are allowed to withhold this information and wouldn’t you know it, the OAC decided against transparency, so the top line just says “restricted” and the rest is left blank.
When you look at Schedule D, you find that the $2,001,050 total claimed revenue number was arrived at by starting with total revenue, gains, and other support per audited financial statements of $4,498,215 and then deducting $2,497,165 in donated services and use of facilities.
Schedule J tells us that their president and CEO, Joseph F. Nadglowski Jr, had total compensation of $265,725 of which $249,296 was base salary, $10,429 was Bonus & incentive compensation, other reportable compensation was $6,000. If we look back at the main form 990 part VII, we see that he also had that $17,205 of “Estimated amount of other compensation from the organization and related organizations”
So that’s it for the update. This is definitely one of those groups whose involvement in anything immediately makes me incredibly suspicious of what’s in it for the weight loss industry.
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More research
The Research Post
More resources
The Resource Post
*Note on language: I use “fat” as a neutral descriptor as used by the fat activist community, I use “ob*se” and “overw*ight” to acknowledge that these are terms that were created to medicalize and pathologize fat bodies, with roots in racism and specifically anti-Blackness. Please read Sabrina Strings’ Fearing the Black Body – the Racial Origins of Fat Phobia and Da’Shaun Harrison’s Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness for more on this.
Thank you for your original article and this update. I just read both, and I now know why I have been re-classified as someone with obesity as opposed to someone who is obese. Frankly, I am not sure which one is worse. Being obese paints me as someone who is undisciplined and out of control. Having obesity paints me as someone with a disease who is unwilling/recalcitrant/resistant to treatment. Both paint me as undesirable. When I was younger, I may have embraced the disease diagnosis and jumped at the chance to take a drug like a GLP-1. At this time of my life, I’m skeptical of virtually everything coming from the diet and wellness industry. As you point out in this article: Follow the money! Thanks again.
It used to be that “patient advocacy” groups actually funded by pharmaceutical companies got called on their shit and paid big fines (for example, Genentech founded a “parent’s group” to sell human growth hormone off label to parents of short kids — it was only approved for dwarfism — and FDA came down on them hard). These days, that’s less likely, but we can still call out the jerks. Many thanks for this well researched article.