16/09/2026
Sometimes education provides knowledge. Sometimes, it evolves our thinking.
I felt a real shift in the room after presenting on ‘Weight management in the peri/menopausal woman’ at the Women’s Health Essentials in Primary Care Conference on the Gold Coast.
Some really meaningful conversations happened just after I stepped off the stage.
Many GP’s excitedly came up to tell me that our session had challenged the way that they had previously thought about weight during this stage of a woman’s life.
We reflected on the women that we’ve seen over the years.
Women who have come to us, saying that their weight, or body shape, has changed.
Who may already be implementing all the right things.
And yet, somewhere along the way, our response may still have been to suggest some form of ‘eat less, move more’.
We acknowledged that there was some discomfort in those conversations.
Not because anyone had intentionally provided suboptimal care, but because we were questioning whether some of our longstanding assumptions about weight had stopped us from looking in a different way.
When a woman in her peri/menopausal years tells us that her body has changed, despite doing many of the things that used to work, perhaps a useful question that we can ask is ‘What has changed for her?’
The menopause transition can bring about changes in oestrogen, insulin sensitivity, fat distribution and body composition.
That doesn’t make nutrition or exercise less important.
But it does change the context in which we need to think about them.
For me, that was the most valuable part of the day.
Not simply sharing what we understand about the physiology of menopause, but seeing that knowledge translate into a different way of thinking about that woman sitting in front of us.
Because sometimes, education provides knowledge.
And sometimes, it changes the questions that we ask.
Thank you Myhealth Academy for hosting this event and facilitating these wonderful conversations.
