Faculty researchers write chapter in WHO European Regional Obesity Report 2022

Southampton researchers have made an important contribution to a new report that examines the growing challenge and impact of obesity across the WHO European Region.

The WHO European Regional Obesity Report 2022 reveals that none of the 53 Member States of the Region are on track to meet the WHO Global Noncommunicable Disease target of halting the rise of obesity by 2025.  

Across Europe, 59% of adults are overweight or obese as well as 8% of children under five and one in three children of school age, according to the report. It also says the disease is causing 200,000 cancer cases and 1.2 million deaths a year.

Dr Christina Vogel and Professor Cyrus Cooper from the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Centre, University of Southampton authored chapter 2 of the report, which describes ‘Obesity across the lifecourse’ and presents findings of an umbrella review of interventions that are effective at preventing and managing obesity at key life stages.

The chapter suggests that policies and interventions that cover the whole population and address the environmental and commercial determinants of poor diet are likely to be most effective at reversing the obesity epidemic.

It says the most promising policies are to:

• tax sugar-sweetened beverages and the use of sugar in processed foods
• restrict the prominent positioning and promotion of unhealthy foods
• ban online advertising of unhealthy foods to children
• limit the proliferation of takeaway outlets in low-income neighbourhoods.