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WHO's first global guidelines on child and adolescent obesity: lifestyle care first, no medicines under 10

2 published versions. Every version stays readable at its own address, and nothing is removed without a correction note.

  1. Version 2Current · clarification

    Record closed: no longer updated, because the topic is outside the areas Stories of Record covers.

    • Status: Developing → Closed
  2. Version 1 · created

    Story created.

    • Timeline added: WHO put GLP-1 medicines on its Essential Medicines List on 5 September 2025, for treating type 2 diabetes in people at high risk.
    • Timeline added: On 1 December 2025 WHO issued its first guideline on GLP-1 medicines for obesity, conditionally recommending them for long-term treatment in adults, excluding pregnant women.
    • Timeline added: The World Health Organization released its first guidelines on obesity in children and adolescents, setting out how health systems and health workers should deliver care.
    • Confirmed: There are two documents: one for children aged 29 days to under 10 years, and one for adolescents aged 10 to 19.
    • Confirmed: In 2024, 170 million children and adolescents aged 5 to 19 were living with obesity: 70 million aged 5 to 9 and 100 million aged 10 to 19.
    • Confirmed: Obesity prevalence among 5- to 19-year-olds has quadrupled since 1990, from 2% to 8%.
    • Confirmed: For children and adolescents with obesity, WHO strongly recommends structured diet, physical activity and behaviour-change support, given one-to-one or as part of a programme combining several approaches. Digital health tools are conditionally recommended, with a parent or caregiver supervising.
    • Confirmed: Dr Luz María De Regil, who directs WHO's Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, said: "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."
    • Confirmed: The guidelines tell health workers to address obesity and mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression early and together.
    • Confirmed: WHO says obesity care should aim to improve health, functioning and well-being rather than only weight, with long-term follow-up.
    • Confirmed: WHO says treatment on its own will not reverse rising obesity. It wants governments to make healthy food and exercise cheaper and easier to reach, including through regulatory and fiscal measures.
    • Confirmed: Together with WHO's existing recommendations for adults, the new guidelines give WHO obesity-care recommendations from childhood to adulthood.
    • Confirmed: WHO says the consequences of obesity can begin early in life, raising the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and that children and adolescents with obesity may face stigma, discrimination and bullying.
    • Confirmed: WHO put GLP-1 medicines on its Essential Medicines List on 5 September 2025, for treating type 2 diabetes in people at high risk.
    • Confirmed: On 1 December 2025 WHO issued its first guideline on GLP-1 medicines for obesity, conditionally recommending them for long-term treatment in adults, excluding pregnant women.
    • Confirmed: WHO made the adult recommendation conditional because data on long-term efficacy and safety are limited, and because of cost, health-system readiness and fair access.
    • Source added: WHO issues first global guidelines on child and adolescent obesity (World Health Organization)
    • Source added: WHO guidelines on the integrated management of obesity in children (World Health Organization)
    • Source added: WHO guidelines on the integrated management of obesity in adolescents (World Health Organization)
    • Source added: WHO issues global guideline on the use of GLP-1 medicines in treating obesity (World Health Organization)