From discussion to action: reflections from the Global Obesity Forum 2026
Sadia Ali, ASO Communications and Policy Lead
We know a lot about what needs to change on obesity. So why is making it happen still so hard?
That’s the question we came home with after the Global Obesity Forum in Madrid on Monday 26 October, hosted by the World Obesity Federation alongside the government-led Madrid Global Obesity Summit.
The Forum brought together researchers, healthcare professionals, civil society organisations, youth advocates and people with lived experience from around the world. The focus was on what comes next, and how years of research, recommendations and commitments turn into real progress by 2030.
There was a lot packed into the afternoon, but a few conversations stuck with us.
We know obesity isn’t just about personal choice. So why do we keep ending up there?
Dr Bruno Halpern, President of the World Obesity Federation, opened with a contradiction that will sound familiar to anyone working in this field.
We talk about obesity as a chronic disease. We recognise the influence of food environments, money, and the conditions people live in. We know it’s far more complicated than what someone puts in their shopping basket.
And yet when it comes to deciding what to actually do, we somehow land back at telling people to eat better and make healthier choices.
Halpern had a few thoughts on why obesity hasn’t attracted the same political urgency as other big health challenges. Unlike a pandemic, it builds slowly, so it’s easy to get used to. Governments think in election cycles. Obesity needs a much longer view than that.
And then there’s stigma. As long as obesity is seen as a personal failure, it’s easier to leave responsibility with individuals than to tackle what’s really driving it.
Prevention or treatment? Why are we still picking sides?
It’s hard to have a conversation about obesity right now without GLP-1 medicines coming up. They’ve put treatment firmly in the spotlight, and several speakers made the same point: we can’t let that push prevention into the background.
At the same time, prevention alone does nothing for the people already living with obesity who need proper care now.
Halpern was candid that clinicians and public health professionals don’t always see this the same way. They don’t always agree on priorities either. But both bring expertise the other needs.
The obesity community could get better at this. Prevention and treatment aren’t competing teams, and both deserve proper attention.
What does this look like in practice?
One of the most valuable parts of the day was hearing how other countries are approaching obesity, and how different the challenges look depending on where you are.
Spain was a good example of what can happen when research and advocacy come together. Dr Santiago Gómez Santos from the Gasol Foundation talked about its PASOS research, which looks at the health and lifestyles of children aged 8 to 16 across Spain. The findings helped make the case for government action and fed into Spain’s National Strategic Plan to Reduce Childhood Obesity in 2022. The plan includes around 200 measures running to 2030 and now involves 18 government ministries.
That’s a serious level of cross-government commitment. But as Gómez Santos put it, getting a strategy agreed is one thing. Making it happen is another. The focus now is on speeding up implementation, with schools, community organisations and civil society all playing their part.
South Africa and Zambia brought a different dimension.
A lived-experience advocate from South Africa talked about cultural attitudes to body weight, fragmented health services, and policies that don’t always reflect the lives of the people they’re meant to help.
One point really landed. People are constantly told to eat better or exercise more. But how often do we stop and ask whether they have the money, the time or the support to do either?
From Zambia, we heard about unhealthy food being marketed to children, including around schools, and how hard that makes life for families trying to do the right thing.
The lesson was that policies don’t operate in a vacuum. What works, and what people actually need, depends on their circumstances. That’s also why having people with lived experience in the room matters so much.
And what happens when everyone goes home?
This is the question that stayed with us most.
Halpern made the point that you can’t judge a Forum or a Summit on the day it ends. The real test comes a year or two later. Have governments done what they promised? Are policies actually being implemented? Have things got better for people living with obesity?
It’s easy to leave an international meeting feeling buoyed by the discussion and the shared ambition. The harder part is making sure it turns into something real.
That’s just as true here in the UK. This year the Health and Social Care Committee published reports on both the food environment and weight management, with clear recommendations for government. There’s a real opportunity to build on that work, but it will take more than agreeing on what needs to change. It needs the healthy food standard, the advertising rules and NHS weight-management services to actually be delivered, measured and reported on.
For ASO, Madrid gave us plenty to take back to our work. As a scientific and professional organisation, our job is to bring the research into policy conversations, connect expertise from across the obesity community, and keep asking what happens next.
Because there’s only so far we can get by agreeing with each other about the size of the problem.
Maybe we should spend a bit more time asking what’s happened since the last commitment before we make the next one.
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The wider Madrid Global Obesity Summit was due to finish on Wednesday 28 October. Following a fatal train collision near Toledo, south of Madrid, WHO and the Spanish Government postponed that day’s high-level session, including the planned launch of the Global Call for Action. Our thoughts are with everyone affected, and especially those who lost loved ones.
