2025 in review: Policy & Advocacy
2025 was a critical year for global action on obesity and non-communicable diseases (NCDs), culminating in the Fourth UN High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases at the UN General Assembly in September.
In addition, the launch of the WHO Living Guideline on GLP therapies marks a milestone in strengthening health systems to care for people living with obesity. Throughout the year, World Obesity has campaigned to ensure that obesity is a priority on the global health agenda, working closely with lived experience advocates.
Here are some highlights of our achievements from this past year.
NCD Alliance Forum
World Obesity actively participated in the Global NCD Alliance Forum 2025, held in Kigali, Rwanda, from 13–15 February, under the theme 'Leadership on NCDs towards 2025 & beyond.' We led and co-hosted several sessions to elevate the obesity agenda within the broader NCD agenda, emphasising the need for multisectoral action, improved financing, and the inclusion of people with lived experience.
Key discussions highlighted that despite global progress — including the WHO Acceleration Plan to Stop Obesity and adoption of comprehensive obesity recommendations — implementation gaps persist. World Obesity’s sessions explored building a social movement for obesity, closing the financing gap for NCDs and mental health, and addressing the double burden of malnutrition in urban low- and middle-income countries.
Speakers stressed the importance of systemic change, policy action such as fiscal measures, and the particular vulnerability of women in LMICs. At World Obesity’s booth, advocates were invited to share their top priorities for governments ahead of the 2025 UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs.
read more
Advocacy training for people living with obesity
On the sidelines of the European Congress of Obesity (ECO) 2025, World Obesity, the Global Obesity Patient Alliance (GOPA), and the European Coalition for People living with Obesity (ECPO) co-hosted a session for people living with obesity (PLWO). Thirteen lived experience advocates, representing 11 countries, received training on the basis of advocacy, how to engage decision-makers in conversations around obesity policy and the political process for the UN High-level Meeting on NCDs.
People living with obesity are at the centre of World Obesity’s work. Meaningful engagement helps ensure that the needs and perspectives of PLWO are placed at the centre of policies and narratives, at global, national and local level. This in turn helps ensure that systems and services can be more effective in preventing and managing obesity, and addressing the stigma and bias that currently undermine these efforts and damage the health of individuals.
With the Fourth UN High-level Meeting on NCDs on the horizon in September 2025, this training helped create a cadre of PLWO with advocacy skills and confidence across a diverse range of countries, enabling them to share their needs and perspectives and providing a platform for these voices to be heard.
78th World Health Assembly
World Obesity staff, volunteers and lived experience advocates attended the 78th World Health Assembly in Geneva, contributing statements, participating in strategic discussions, and co-hosting events.
A highlight was our event 'The Right(s) Approach: Driving Action on Obesity and NCDs,' which brought together lived-experience advocates, UN agencies, governments, and civil society to explore rights-based approaches to obesity prevention and care.
read more
We emphasised the need to position obesity at the centre of NCD responses, communicating that many policy actions—including fiscal measures, food system regulations, and front-of-pack labelling—offered double benefits across the broader NCD agenda. Our presence at the Assembly strengthened partnerships, expanded political engagement, and reinforced World Obesity’s leadership as a convener and powerful voice in advancing equitable, rights-based obesity action globally.
Read our statements:
- Role of Global Coordination Mechanism (CGM) and Political Declaration on NCDs
- Regulation of digital marketing of breast-milk substitutes
75th WHO Africa Regional Committee Meeting
World Obesity stepped up its advocacy at the regional level by engaging in the 75th Session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa (RC75) held in Lusaka, Zambia (25-27 Aug 2025). Represented by two of our lived advocates, Stephen Ogweno (Kenya) and Brenda Chitindi (Zambia), we delivered two formal statements in which we called for urgent action to embed obesity prevention, treatment and care into African health systems.
We highlighted that in several African countries, adult obesity already exceeded 30%, underscoring the scale of the challenge and the need for obesity to be recognised as a chronic disease requiring a multisectoral response.
We also emphasised the rising tide of childhood overweight and obesity among 5- to 19-year-olds — noting that overweight in many countries had become the dominant form of malnutrition — and urged Member States to accelerate implementation of WHO-recommended policies (such as taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages and front-of-pack labelling) and to join the WHO Acceleration Plan to Stop Obesity.
read more
The UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs
The biggest event of the year was the UN High-level Meeting on NCDs, where Member States met in New York to review progress and agree a new Political Declaration to accelerate action on NCDs. World Obesity mobilised its members, partners and allies to help strengthen the language in the Political Declaration in several areas to:
- Recognise obesity as a chronic disease
- Commit countries to implement WHO’s multisectoral recommendations and join the WHO Acceleration Plan to Stop Obesity
- Integrate obesity prevention and treatment into primary health care
- Ensure people with lived experience are at the centre of the response
- Commit countries to implement excise taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages, which can both prevent obesity and generate revenue that can be channelled into funding obesity care.
Unfortunately, the final Declaration excluded our key recommendations for the inclusion of obesity in primary care, references to obesity are limited to a handful of mentions in prevention, and the root causes and scale of the obesity epidemic are not reflected. However, we will continue to work with governments, including those in the WHO Acceleration Plan, and partners to ensure meaningful progress in countries is achieved.
Four billion reasons campaign
In the lead-up to the High-Level Meeting,World Obesity launched a campaign to raise awareness that obesity has become one of the most urgent global health challenges, already affecting more than one billion people and projected to impact as many as four billion—half of humanity—by 2035. Our campaign highlighted that obesity is a root of other NCDs, requiring multisectoral action, including in primary health care. And that we have proven solutions that deliver a "double dividend", generating health and economic gains while targeting the root cause of multiple diseases.
As well as the online campaign, our advocacy strategy involved Member State engagement, and thought leadership - we published two pieces (BMJ Opinion and The Lancet Global Health Comment)
UNGA & the Global Obesity Forum
The World Obesity delegation, including people with lived experience, was at the heart of discussions, advocating to end the sidelining and political neglect of obesity in global health, where it has been largely misunderstood as personal failure rather than structural injustice.
Our advocates sought to change this narrative, speaking at several events, including:
- Ian Patton (Canada) at the 'Real voices, better choices: Implementing national NCD and mental health policies led by lived experience' roundtable.
- Amber Huett-Garcia (United States) speaking at 'Accelerating action toward SDG 3.4: Putting obesity on the NCD agenda' panel by Economist Impact.
- Sarah Le Brocq (United Kingdom) speaking at the Science Summit convened by the Global Health Connector on 'The Power of Convergence: Enabling Prevention and Management of Obesity and Related NCDs'.
- Dr Kim Yoohyun (South Korea) speaking at the side event by the Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI), titled 'Promoting Person-Centred NCDs and Mental Health Policies in the Global Community: Japan’s Leadership and Contribution in Asia and Globally'.
World Obesity delegates also contributed to high-level UN roundtables, participated in cross-agency dialogues, and supported the recognition of members who received UN Inter-Agency Task Force Awards for their leadership in obesity and NCD action. Read more about the awardees here.
Global Obesity Forum (GOF)
A highlight of the year was the Global Obesity Forum (GOF), co-hosted with WHO and UNICEF. The Forum brought together leaders, policymakers, researchers, lived-experience advocates and civil society partners to agree on shared priorities ahead of the UN High-Level Meeting. Demand for engagement was unprecedented, with large in-person attendance and a waiting list that exceeded capacity, demonstrating the growing political recognition of obesity as a defining health and development challenge. GOF discussions underscored the need to shift from urgency to unity — moving beyond fragmented efforts toward a coordinated global approach grounded in rights, equity and lived experience.
Across multiple sessions, speakers included Dr Jeremy Farar, Assitant-Director General WHO; Dr Joan Matji, UNICEF’s Director of Child Nutrition and Development; Pau Gasol, baskteball legend and UNICEF ambassador; Government representativies from Egypt, Greece, Mexico and the Philipines, highlighted that effective solutions were already within reach. Evidence-based interventions such as WHO 'Best Buys', front-of-pack labelling, taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages, healthier food environments, and strengthened primary health care could deliver rapid improvements.
In the spirit of the Forum being a place to connect and share ideas with people from across the obesity community, part of the agenda included interactive table discussions where participants rose to the challenge of generating solutions to help shape a new roadmap for addressing obesity. Participants stressed the importance of reframing obesity as a chronic disease shaped by structural determinants, countering stigma, and ensuring health systems offered accessible diagnosis, treatment and long-term support. Particular emphasis was placed on integrating people with lived experience in leadership roles and decision-making processes.
read the full report
WHO guidelines on GLP-1 therapies for obesity care
World Obesity welcomes the WHO’s first living guideline on the use of GLP-1 receptor agonists and GLP-1/GIP dual agonists for the management of obesity - a milestone moment in global efforts to improve treatment options for the more than one billion people living with obesity worldwide. This guideline as a crucial step toward establishing a shared, evidence-based global standard of care for obesity treatment. As the guideline will be updated as evidence evolves, it provides an important foundation upon which countries can build equitable, person-centred obesity care programmes. World Obesity supported the guideline development by disseminating the lived experience survey and sharing technical expertise from our Board, Member Associations and Clinical Care Committee.
Publications
WHO Advancing multisectoral and multistakeholder actions on noncommunicable diseases: thematic issue briefs
Co-developed with leading participant organizations of the WHO Global Coordination Mechanism on NCDs (GCM/NCD), the briefs are designed to serve as both additional technical references and strong advocacy tools to advance multisectoral and multistakeholder action on NCDs. Rachel Thompson, WOF Policy and Advocacy Advisor, was the lead author of brief 1 tittled: Institutionalizing multisectoral governance for NCDs: Incentivizing and supporting sustainable multisectoral action.
Investing in Action on Obesity: Catalysing the Double Dividend
This new advocacy brief, makes the case for action on obesity as a ‘win-win’ investment for countries in fiscally challenging times. It argues that investing in obesity prevention and management is both a moral and economic imperative, offering a “double dividend” of health and development gains. With over one billion people currently living with obesity and four billion projected to be affected within a decade, inaction will hinder global progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).