Obesity
Resources & Support
At UCSF Health, we are renowned for our highly specialized and cutting-edge medical care. Along with innovative medicine, we strive to provide a variety of services to ensure that patients and families are fully supported while in our care. UCSF has a team of experienced social workers and condition-specific support groups as well as classes to help patients and families navigate their experiences while in our clinics and hospitals.
Our support services also include unique programs to help heal the mind and spirit, such as Art for Recovery, Healing Through Dance and complimentary spa treatments during infusion therapy. During an unfamiliar and stressful time, UCSF’s support services are ready to lend a hand whenever patients and families need it most.
Patient stories
These are the pants I thought I would be in forever. It was empowering to be able to throw them away.
"My personality was being swallowed by the fat just like the rest of me," says Lindsey Friedberg, a 23-year-old graduate student at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Friedberg, who grew up in Ocean City, New Jersey, surrounded by "slender and tan" girls, has battled her weight all her life. In high school she tried counting calories, eating raw food, drinking 12 bottles of water a day and writing down everything she ate, including the gum she chewed and number of mints. But nothing worked.
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I have so much more self-confidence and energy, and I'm much more comfortable with myself.
Jeff Grubbs, of Galt, California, describes his old self as a "ticking time bomb." At his heaviest, the 48-year-old, who is 5 feet, 7 1/2 inches tall, weighed 311 pounds. He had a body mass index (BMI) of 47, qualifying him as morbidly obese. The extra weight took a dramatic toll on his health. Grubbs suffered from Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, thyroid problems and back pain, requiring him to take up to 15 pills a day.
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