Ending Childhood Obesity 2016

Actions Through Health and Food Equity

Childhood obesity is one of our major challenges to health, putting advancements made in global health at serious risk.

In January 2016, the WHO Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity presented its final report, a package of strong recommendations aimed at reversing the rising trend of children becoming overweight and obese. At Uppsala Health Summit in October 2017, we convened in dialogue on how to translate these recommendations into concrete action.

Uppsala Health Summit concluded its deliberations on how to end childhood obesity with a number of recommendations to governments, the food industry and numerous other stakeholders.

Facts and Figures: Childhood Obesity

Overweight prevalence among children aged under 5 years increased between 1990 and 2014, from 4.8 % to 6.1 %.
Around 42 million children under 5 years are overweight or obese today. If trends persist, this figure will reach 70 million by 2025.
By 2025 the majority of obese or overweight children will live in low- and middle income countries.
In high-income countries, overweight and obesity is generally plateauing. However, among children in socially disadvantages groups prevalence is still increasing.
In 2014, 13 % of the world’s population, adults and children, was obese.
350 million people, or 5 % of the world’s population, live with diabetes.
The prevalence of diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to increase by 100 % by 2035.

Read related policy documents

Read the press release with a summary of the conclusions

The main conclusions from Uppsala Health Summit's meeting on Ending childhood obesity were delivered to WHO's open process on their draft Global Implementation Plan on Ending Childhood Obesity.