World Obesity at UNGA81: building the case for obesity in UHC
The World Obesity delegation convened leaders at a high-level breakfast roundtable, spoke on panels across New York, and ensured people with lived experience had a voice in the discussions shaping their care.
The World Obesity team returned to New York this year for the 81st session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA81). With global health financing tight, systems evolving, and countries starting to prepare for the 2027 UN High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage (UHC), UNGA81 offered an opportunity to ensure obesity is recognised as part of both health and development agendas.
Leaders unite at UNGA81 breakfast roundtable
The focal point of the week was our high-level breakfast roundtable, ‘Obesity, Health Systems and Sustainable Development’, bringing together government leaders, international organisations, civil society, the private sector, academia and people with lived experience of obesity at the River Club in New York.
Co-hosted with the Arab Republic of Egypt, the Government of Thailand, and the Government of Kenya, the discussion focused on how obesity can be better integrated into health systems and development priorities ahead of the 2027 UN High-Level Meeting on UHC.
Several countries shared how they are already taking action. Thailand, Egypt, Kenya, and the Philippines are all working to integrate obesity screening and management into primary healthcare and community-based services. Mexico is linking national primary school screenings to counselling and management, and South Africa is engaging sectors across government, civil society, and people with lived experience of obesity in policy design.
Leaders called for better country-level data to track progress and address inequities, and urged for more scale, speed, and accountability in the response. It was clear that in the run up to the 2027 High-Level Meeting, a unified voice is required to ensure obesity is recognised as fundamental to UHC.
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Influencing the conversation across New York
Beyond the breakfast roundtable, the World Obesity delegation took part in events across the city throughout the UNGA81 week.
CEO Johanna Ralston spoke at Tilt Collective Food Day at Climate Week NYC. She also joined Lived Experience Trustee Ogweno Stephen at Devex Impact House for ‘Accelerating Progress in Global Cardiometabolic Health’, where they emphasised the importance of involving people with lived experience in designing the policies that affect them.
Ogweno stressed that this involvement must be meaningful, not just “a footnote in a policy document”. The expertise gained through lived experience helps build more responsive health systems that effectively meet the needs of people affected.
Photo credit: Joel S Photo LLC for Devex WATCH THE PANEL
At the Foreign Policy Health Forum, Trustee Dr Karen Sealey joined a panel on 'Women’s Health, Metabolic Health, and System Change', exploring the links between perimenopause, menopause, obesity and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).
Dr Sealey argued that every woman has the right to be as healthy as she can be. Making that a reality means educating policymakers, health professionals and the public so they understand the links between these conditions. She highlighted the potential of using every health encounter as an opportunity to intervene. Drawing on her experience of the HIV/AIDS response, she described how co-locating HIV and NCD services has blurred the line between providers, so people are treated as a whole rather than one condition at a time.
Photo credit: Jonathan Heisler WATCH THE PANEL
Past President Dr Simón Barquera spoke at the Rockefeller Foundation’s event, ‘The Prescription the World's Health Systems Are Missing: Food is Medicine’. Food is Medicine programmes provide high-need patients with nutrition support through produce prescriptions, medically tailored meals or healthy grocery programmes. Early research suggests they could improve health outcomes while reducing healthcare costs.
Dr Barquera discussed the global potential of these programmes, drawing on experience in Mexico. He highlighted Mexico’s work to improve food systems in the country, including the success of Mexico’s tax on sugar-sweetened beverages introduced in 2014, and the more recent introduction of front-of-pack warning labels and restrictions on marketing unhealthy food and drink products to children.
Lived experience at the centre
People with lived experience of obesity were central to World Obesity’s presence at UNGA81.
Alongside our own event, Lived Experience Trustees Ogweno Stephen and Amber Huett-Garcia and advocate Morgan Salmon joined events on access to medicines, nutrition, NCDs, integrated care, and health financing. They asked questions of speakers and shared their own experiences, making sure the realities of living with obesity were part of the conversation.
At our breakfast roundtable, Ogweno spoke about his experience of childhood obesity and his difficulties fitting in both in school and at home. He described the financial burden of obesity in Kenya, where it is not covered by health insurance. Families must pay out of pocket, sometimes selling their possessions to afford treatment, and are left vulnerable to fake drugs and products promising fast weight loss.
Morgan Salmon spoke about the emotional toll of having to fight for appropriate care across the four different national health systems where he has lived, including the sense of failure when a treatment doesn’t work. He urged leaders to recognise the emotional impact of poor access to care, and the personal stories behind the statistics.
Lived Experience Voices
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Continuing the conversation in Madrid
Our annual flagship event, the Global Obesity Forum, comes to Madrid, Spain this year. Building on momentum from UNGA81, the 2026 Forum will focus on shared accountability for progress on obesity. It will be held alongside the Global Obesity Summit, where the Government of Spain, WHO and UNICEF will take stock of countries' progress under the WHO Acceleration Plan to Stop Obesity.
Through interactive discussions, voices from across the obesity community will explore what shared accountability means in practice, and how meaningful participation can contribute to sustained progress on obesity towards 2030.
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