NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 7— The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued its first global guidelines for treating obesity in children and adolescents as the number of young people living with the disease has quadrupled since 1990.
WHO estimates that obesity now affects around 8 per cent of children and adolescents aged five to 19, up from 2 per cent three decades ago.
In 2024, about 170 million children and adolescents were living with obesity, including 70 million children aged five to nine and around 100 million adolescents.
The UN health agency is urging countries to prioritise comprehensive lifestyle support, including healthier diets, physical activity and sustained behaviour change, while reserving medicines and surgery for carefully selected older adolescents.
“The foundation of obesity care for children and adolescents is not medicine or surgery, but access to comprehensive support that enables healthy eating, physical activity and sustainable behaviour change,” said Dr Luz María De Regil, Director of WHO’s Department of Nutrition and Food Safety.
WHO classifies obesity as a chronic, relapsing disease caused by excessive accumulation of body fat that can be managed through appropriate care.
The agency warned that obesity during childhood can have lifelong consequences, increasing the risk of conditions including type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Children and adolescents living with obesity may also face stigma, discrimination and bullying, which can damage their mental health and contribute to anxiety, depression and low self-esteem.
Medicines not first-line treatment
WHO does not recommend weight-loss medicines, bariatric surgery or weight-loss devices for children aged 0 to 9.
For adolescents aged 10 to 19, approved obesity medicines, including GLP-1 therapies, should only be considered when a supervised lifestyle programme has failed to produce sufficient improvement.
Bariatric surgery may also be considered for adolescents with severe obesity, but only under strict conditions and as part of comprehensive care.
The guidelines stress that treatment should not focus solely on reducing weight but should improve children’s health, functioning and overall well-being, with care tailored to individual needs and followed up over the long term.
Policy action
WHO said clinical treatment alone will not reverse the global rise in childhood obesity, calling for governments to address the wider environments in which children live, eat and grow.
The agency urged countries to make healthy diets and physical activity more accessible and affordable through measures spanning food regulation and taxation, education, urban planning, transport and social protection.
“Our priority must be to ensure that every child and adolescent can access quality care and supportive environments from an early age,” De Regil said.
WHO said the approach should also integrate mental-health support, noting that psychological difficulties can contribute to unhealthy eating, physical inactivity and social withdrawal, while obesity-related stigma can further worsen emotional well-being.
The new guidelines provide countries with a framework for responding to childhood obesity as a growing global health challenge while emphasizing prevention, supportive environments and long-term care.
