About Dr. Caroline J. Cederquist, M.D.

YES Caroline J. Cederquist, M.D., is a busy family woman, devoted to her husband and four children. Yet as the medical director of Cederquist Comprehensive Weight Control and as a health media personality, she is equally committed to the care of her own patients and the promotion of wellness for everyone.

Dr. Cederquist has appeared as a weight-management expert on national television, including the Dr. Phil, the Ricki Lake and Ananda Lewis shows, and is the contributing medical editor on her local Today Show, through the NBC affiliate in Fort Myers , Florida . She shares her wisdom through radio health segments and through articles in regional and national magazines and newspaper columns.

As one of only about 250 doctors nationwide to have achieved board certification in bariatrics – the specialty of medical weight management–Dr. Cederquist knows the difficult reality people face when trying to develop healthy eating habits and managing their weight. She built her specialty practice after working in family practice and seeing how widespread medical problems related to weight have become. Her philosophy has always been that promoting wellness is far preferable to healing illness, even if it does not seem to have the same urgency. And she believes that today, it truly does.

As a National Merit Scholar, Dr. Cederquist won full scholarship to the University of Miami's Honors Medical Education program before even graduating high school, and went on to complete both her bachelor's and M.D. in six years. She was admitted to both Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha, the medical honors society, for which she was later elected an officer.

Upon being awarded her M.D. in 1991, Dr. Cederquist was honored with the national Upjohn Achievement Award for "Outstanding Personal and Professional Qualities Deemed Most Valuable in a Physician" at graduation. She undertook her family practice internship at Fairfax Hospital , before going on to be appointed chief resident at the Medical College of Virginia and subsequently earned her board certification in family practice. Dr. Cederquist returned to Florida in 1997, and established her own practice a year later.

In addition to her clinical work with patients and her media outreach, Dr. Cederquist often gives lectures for medical professionals and the lay public about weight-related disorders, and the entire complex of causes and consequences related to overweight. Among many professional memberships, she counts as significant her election to the Board of Trustees of the American Society of Bariatric Physicians, and is proud to serve as the Chairperson of the Public Relations Committee.