2024 in review: Policy & Advocacy
Welcome to our global obesity policy and advocacy highlights for the year 2024.
The road to the Fourth UN High-level Meeting on Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) in 2025 is fully underway and this year we've leveraged advocacy opportunities at several UN fora to help ensure obesity is a priority in the global health agenda. Working with WHO and UNICEF, our partners in the Global Obesity Coalition, the team has convened high-level events and is helping mobilise civil society to support the WHO Acceleration Plan to Stop Obesity by launching a global community of practice.
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Here are some highlights of our advocacy achievements from this past year.
Participation at the 154th session of the WHO Executive Board
In January, our CEO, Johanna Ralston, and Head of Policy and Advocacy, Magdalena Wetzel, participated in the Executive Board contributing to discussions on key agenda items, and met with WHO colleagues, advocates and stakeholders during this high-level health week. In our capacity as an organisation in official relations with the WHO, the World Obesity team were able to participate and contribute to discussions on key agenda items including on Universal Health Coverage and social participation to accelerate progress towards it, Maternal and infant health and nutrition, Climate change and health, and Leveraging the power of sport for improved health and well-being.
In addition, we also participated in a constituency statement for NCDs, as well as a joint statement for maternal, infant and young child nutrition.
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The power of youth: webinar with young people catalysing change
This World Obesity Day on 4 March, the Global Obesity Coalition hosted a global youth-led webinar to unlock conversations around how obesity affects the lives of young people around the world and the concrete change they are both leading and demanding.
Our event brought together almost 300 participants and included youth voices from Barbados, South Africa, Jordan, Philippines, USA, UK and Brazil.
The event also featured a message from Pau Gasol, NBA All-star, UNICEF Ambassador & Global Champion for Nutrition and Zero Childhood Obesity, and President of the Gasol Foundation.
World Obesity at the 77th World Health Assembly
The World Obesity team joined our members and fellow health organisations at the 77th World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva during May to progress action on obesity. We participated in a high-level event around the WHO Acceleration Plan to Stop Obesity co-hosted by the Ministers of Health from Spain and Jordan. We also co-hosted an event with partners on the digital marketing of breastmilk substitutes, which is in dire need of regulation.
To further highlight the need to address obesity and cardiometabolic disease together, we co-hosted a side event with World Heart Federation on health systems preparedness to addressing both global health challenges including speakers from India, Ghana and the UK. We delivered a number of statements on key agenda items, including on Universal Health Coverage and Obesity, Well-being and Health Promotion, Social Determinants of Health and Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition.
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International Dialogue on Sustainable Financing for NCDs and Mental Health
We joined participants from governments, civil society, academia and philanthropies in Washington, DC in June for the second International Dialogue on Sustainable Financing for NCDs and Mental Health co-hosted by WHO and the World Bank.
We worked with other NCD Alliance members to ensure the voices of those with lived experience came through strongly throughout the meeting.
With United for Global Mental Health, next year we will be co-hosting an event at the postponed NCD Forum in Rwanda to reflect on this dialogue and discuss next steps for civil society.
Advancing multisector action in Brazil
During the International Congress on Obesity (ICO) in São Paulo, Brazil in June, the Global Obesity Coalition convened a multisector workshop with Brazilians from research, lived experience, advocacy, and clinical backgrounds to discuss obesity policy priorities and engage civil society in the WHO Acceleration Plan to Stop Obesity. We also hosted a capacity-building advocacy workshop with the Latin American and Caribbean Nutritional and Health Community of Practice (COLANSA), Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI), and the International Network for Obesity/noncommunicable diseases Research, Monitoring and Action Support (INFORMAS).
Featuring speakers from the Latin American region and around the world, this workshop aimed to share international success stories in food policy advocacy, highlighting the valuable role of evidence and the involvement of researchers/academics along with civil society and other stakeholders.
Paving the way to the 2025 UN High-level Meeting on NCDs at the 79th UN General Assembly
World Obesity representatives attended and participated in a number of events with members and obesity stakeholders at the 79th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 79) held in New York this September. Read more about our activities at UNGA 79 here.
We highlighted the urgency of taking collective action to stem the tide of rising NCDs as we count down to the Fourth High-level Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on the Prevention and Control of NCDs and Mental Health in 2025. The Global Obesity Coalition co-hosted a side event on accelerating the response to the obesity epidemic during which the Vice-Minister of Health for Kazakhstan emphasised how the SDGs will be almost impossible to achieve if obesity is not addressed.
Read our related article
Thought leadership highlights
Let’s talk differently about obesity
To mark World Obesity Day 2024, World Obesity Federation authors published a piece in the BMJ calling for the world to talk about obesity differently. They highlighted the importance of using people-first language and of talking frankly about the drivers of obesity, including food systems. The article calls on governments and institutions to take action by integrating obesity into negotiations and engaging meaningfully with people living with obesity. And to encourage people living with obesity to share their perspectives and engage in advocacy efforts to demand changes in public policy, commercial behaviour, and healthcare access.
Chemical pollutants: An invisible cause of obesity?
In an expert comment, Senior Policy Advisor, Dr Tim Lobstein, reviews the evidence and explains how chemicals in the environment may be adding to the obesity epidemic - and are another reason why individuals should not be blamed for weight gain. His article highlights how if chemical pollutants, found everywhere from food packaging to cosmetics to soft furnishings, are a significant component of the risk of obesity then we may have an explanation of why even the most carefully controlled study on improving diet and physical activity, in schools and communities, show only small improvements in BMI status.
Let’s end corporate sponsorship of sporting events
Published during the Paris 2024 Olympics, World Obesity authors argue that we need to end corporate sponsorship by Coca-Cola and other sugar-sweetened beverages companies if we want to encourage healthy populations. We highlight how in the same way that tobacco sponsorship is no longer acceptable at the Olympics or other major sporting events, a groundswell of support could put pressure on games organisers to halt the impact of soft drink advertising on Olympic culture. The authors call on the public health community to oppose the partnership between Coca-Cola and the International Olympic Committee.
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