Towards a Global Action Plan on Obesity: World Obesity attends the 150th WHO Executive Board

From January 24^th - 28^th, World Obesity and its Members will be attending the 150^th WHO Executive Board.

Despite countries’ commitments to the WHO target to halt the rise in obesity by 2025, efforts to address obesity continue to fail, and countries are catastrophically off track to meet the targets. Today, 800 million people worldwide are living with obesity, with a billion more at risk of developing overweight or obesity. This includes 39 million children under the age of 5 years in 2020 and 340 million children and adolescents aged 5-19 in 2016.  NCD deaths attributable to obesity have rise to 5 million per year and the number of people with obesity – and without adequate care – continues to rise, while concerted and effective actions to both prevent and treat obesity remains stagnant.

The global and indeed WHO responses to obesity have failed, which also jeopardises other NCD targets.  Although extensive commitments to address obesity have been made by WHO and Member States across nutrition, healthcare, physical activity, within diabetes and among children, these efforts are thwarted by persistent misunderstanding of, underinvestment in and even bias against obesity and those affected by it. 

Obesity is a chronic, relapsing, multifactorial disease and the main risk factor for a number of other non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Obesity, like all chronic diseases, has a wide range of drivers and determinants. Genetics, biology, healthcare access, mental health, sociocultural factors, economics, commercial interests and environmental determinants are all roots of obesity. These roots interact and compound one another across a number of systems, resulting in the trends we see today.

Obesity often starts early in life and childhood obesity is now a growing public health concern in low- and middle-income countries where early prevention is critical and where the double burden of malnutrition prevails. As well as being a health issue, people living with obesity can face stigma and suffer poor mental health. It is clear that obesity is a disease that does not receive adequate prioritisation commensurate with its burden. In order to be addressed effectively, obesity requires systems thinking and comprehensive policy action.

Over the last decade, our collective understanding of the science of obesity as well as of successful implementation of policies and services, has dramatically increased. But much remains to be done. Success on obesity will only be achieved through implementation of a comprehensive policy package across prevention and treatment, relevant to all countries, and with people at the centre.  Obesity must be integrated into the NCD response as an NCD in its own right, with a comprehensive action plan covering treatment and prevention. 

We cannot continue business as usual as success must not be defined by one or two specific and disconnected interventions or actions. 2021 has been a pivotal year, bringing obesity to the forefront of the global health and political stage.  Now is our chance to make 2022 the turning point for obesity globally.