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The World Obesity Federation is partnering with the prestigious medical journal The Lancet along with the University of Auckland and the George Washington University, USA, to launch a Lancet Commission on Obesity.

The new Commission features University of Auckland Professor Boyd Swinburn as co-chair, along with Professor Bill Dietz of George Washington University.

The Commission aims to stimulate action on obesity and strengthen accountability systems for the implementation of agreed recommendations to reduce obesity and its related inequalities and to develop new understandings of the underlying systems that are driving obesity in order to develop innovative approaches towards making those systems less obesogenic.

The Commission aims to publish a biennial World Obesity Report showing progress towards national and global targets for obesity prevalence, along with progress towards the implementation of policies and actions to tackle the drivers of obesity.

New figures from World Obesity suggest that if current trends continue, 2.7 billion adults worldwide will be overweight by 2025 - an increase from 2 billion in 2014. Furthermore, current trends suggest 177 million adults will be severely obese by 2025 and in need of treatment.

In 2012 governments all around the world made a commitment to bring down the prevalence of overweight and obesity to 2010 levels by the year 2025 – a commitment that World Obesity highlights each year on World Obesity Day.

World Obesity Federation President Professor Walmir Coutinho explains “the obesity epidemic has reached virtually every country worldwide, and overweight and obesity levels are set to continue to rise.

“Governments know the present epidemic is unsustainable and doing nothing is not an option.

“They have agreed to tackle obesity and to bring down obesity prevalence to 2010 levels by the year 2025.

“If governments hope to achieve the WHO target of keeping obesity at 2010 levels, then the time to act is now.”

Factors behind obesity are considerable, more than half of the world’s population now live in urban environments while one in four adults and four in five young people aged between 11 and 17 years fail to get sufficient physical activity

In addition, the last 10 years have seen the consumption of sugary drinks worldwide increase by a third.

World Obesity Federation Director of Policy Dr Tim Lobstein added “common risk factors such as soft drink consumption and sedentary working environments, have increased, fast food advertising continues and greater numbers of people live in urban environments without access to green spaces.

“Governments have accepted the need for regulatory measures such as market controls, taxes and subsidies, setting standards for catering services and investment in healthy schools – but few

governments are implementing these measures.

“Governments should take a number of actions to help prevent obesity, including introducing tough regulations to protect children from the marketing of unhealthy food, ensuring, schools promote healthy eating, strengthening planning and building rules to ensure safe neighbourhoods, encouraging workplaces to offer and promote healthy food choices and physical activity and introducing taxes and subsidies to make healthier food cheaper and unhealthy food more expensive.”

The Lancet Commission on Obesity features 22 Commissioners including Sharon Friel, Director, Professor of Health Equity at the Australian National University; CSIRO Chief Research Scientist Mark Howden  and New Zealand economist Gareth Morgan.          

World Obesity Day was held on 11th October this year.

For more information go to www.lancetobesity.info and www.worldobesity.org.

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We hope that you value the news that we publish so while you're here can we ask for your support?

The news we publish at www.ausleisure.com.au is independent, credible (we hope) and free for you to access, with no pay walls and no annoying pop-up ads.

However, as an independent publisher, can we ask for you to support us by subscribing to the printed Australasian Leisure Management magazine - if you don't already do so.

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Subscriptions cost just $90 a year.

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