Obesity: Why Your Experience of Weight Treatment Is Research Data

Every figure in this guide comes from a published source, linked where it appears and kept in CureCircle's evidence base with the source's own words. It is not medical advice. Read on 7 November 2026.

Weight is one of the most studied subjects in medicine and one of the least understood from the inside. Diets, programmes, medicines, surgery: people living with obesity have usually tried several, and know what each did to their weight, their energy, their appetite and their life, and what happened when they stopped. New weight-loss medicines have made those questions more pressing: who they help, for how long, and what comes after. Research needs that long view, from the people who lived it.

How many people live with it

According to the WHO, "in 2024, 1 in 7 people (1.1 billion) in the world were living with obesity". In a long US study of adults who did not have obesity at the start, new obesity arose at 28.1 per 1,000 person-years.

The records worth keeping

NICE's 2025 guideline on overweight and obesity, and a Korean clinical guideline, describe the records that care leaves:

• Measurements: NICE asks clinicians, with permission, to measure and record height, weight and waist circumference. A series of them over years is the core record.
• Blood tests that check for related conditions, such as fasting blood glucose, a lipid profile and liver function tests.
• Medicine reviews: NICE recommends regular review of weight-management medicines, and considering stopping if less than 5% of the initial weight has been lost after 6 months. Your prescription history records each step.

Steps and activity from a phone or watch, and your own notes on appetite and side effects, show what the appointments miss. If you do not have your results, ask your practice for a copy.

What sharing it is worth

CureCircle values every contribution with a public benchmark built from what health data has sold for. A complete story with the records the guidelines list comes to about $65 per licence on the benchmark today. With 90 days of activity data from a phone or wearable added, it comes to about $193 per licence. Every line and its source is on the obesity page.

A licence is not a one-off sale: the same de-identified story can be licensed to several research teams, and you earn a share each time.

How to share it

You start by writing what you live with in your own words; a few quick questions follow, then an AI interviewer asks about the details only you know, and you rate every treatment you tried, from programmes and diets to medicines and surgery. You can add blood results, letters and prescriptions as PDFs or photos, and the AI reads them into your own medical file. Before anything is shared, you read the de-identified summary and decide. Nothing in it identifies you.

Start your story, or read what your health data is worth first.