Aucklander to co-lead global obesity commission

Aucklander to co-lead global obesity commission

Media Release - University of Auckland - 2 November 2015

Auckland public health expert, Professor Boyd Swinburn will jointly lead a new international commission on obesity, launched today by prestigious medical journal, The Lancet.

The Lancet established the Commission on Obesity to contribute to accountability systems for action and to critically analyse systemic drivers and solutions for obesity.

The Commission is founded on two Lancet Series on obesity in 2011 and 2015, and is a partnership among The Lancet, the University of Auckland, George Washington University and the World Obesity Federation.

The Commission was launched at the North American Obesity conference in Los Angeles this week and will be led by Professor Swinburn and Dr William Dietz, director of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.

The Commissioners include another New Zealander, Gareth Morgan and expert representation from Barbados, Mexico, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, the United States, Canada, Brazil, China, the Netherlands and South Africa.

“The Commission’s analysis will bring a deeper understanding of obesity as a result of underlying complex systems,” says Professor Swinburn “These include food systems, urban systems and economic systems that are fundamentally designed to improve people’s lives but have some negative consequences including driving up obesity in most countries around the world. It will also devise innovative approaches to reorient those systems in a sustainable and scalable way to encourage healthy weight.”

“Obesity is likely to share common determinants and solutions with other major emergent problems that the world is facing, such as climate change and inequities,” he says.

“The Commission aims to stimulate action and strengthen accountability to put in place agreed recommendations to reduce obesity and its related inequalities at global and national levels,” says Professor Swinburn.

Alongside these aims, the Commission will also establish mechanisms for regular, independent reporting on progress towards national and global obesity targets, implementation of recommended policies and actions, and specific systems analyses of obesity drivers and solutions.

The Commissioners include high-level experts in global obesity and the underlying systems that are driving obesity. They represent diverse sectors including nutrition, physical activity, urban planning, food systems, agriculture, climate change, economics, governance and politics, law, business, marketing and communication, trade and investment, human rights, equity, systems science, consumer advocacy, monitoring and evaluation, Indigenous health, epidemiology, medicine, and health care.

The Commission will have its inaugural meeting in February, 2016, in Washington DC, USA, to determine its work plans.

ENDS

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