Addressing Obesity Together: Changing Systems, Healthier Lives
World Obesity Day 2025
The costs of failure to treat obesity can be translated in human and economic terms.
From policy through to medical management in primary care, improved understanding of the causes and consequences of obesity is essential, and immediate action is needed to address them.
The prevalence of paediatric obesity has risen more than 10-fold over the past 40 years. Globally, over 157 million children and adolescents are living with obesity.
Childhood obesity has been recognised as a disease, and we need to be aware of the seriousness of this health issue.
We know that 75–80% of children and adolescents who live with obesity are likely to have obesity as an adult. 85,000 children of this generation are expected to die prematurely due to the impact of overweight and obesity on health.
Launching this book for World Obesity Day was only the beginning. We will be looking to collaborate with those who want to ensure we keep a focus on changing systems and continue calling for action by addressing obesity together.
We at ICPO were excited to launch the childhood obesity book “Mum, what is Obesity” on this years campaign day.
Launched at the European Congress on Obesity in May 2024 in Venice, this book is now published in Portugal, Spain, Germany, Uk and now launching in many other European countries, including Ireland.
“Though speaking about childhood growth, health, development and obesity can be challenging, we must all improve our ability to communicate such ideas. This refreshing story paints the complexity of obesity using the colours and textures of simple language. It clearly presents our children’s need (and right!) for respect and loving nurture”
Dr. Grace O’Malley, Clinical Lead, CHI Healthy Living Service, Children’s Health Ireland;
Senior Lecturer, RCSI School of Physiotherapy.
“This book is a great way for children to start to understand that their weight is not their fault and that obesity is something that can be talked about without stigma or shame”
Cara, ECPO youth advocate, Ireland.
The book is available to order on Amazon in both English AND as Gaeilge, and our aim will be to have this book disseminated to schools, libraries, medical waiting rooms, and homes.
The small percentage of proceeds made from book sales will be ring fenced to print books to be sent to these places where they can be a resource which will aid in raising awareness of obesity and reducing stigma for children.
We were so grateful to have expert speakers in the field of obesity join us on the night.
You will find videos and photographs of the event in our Resources (Home) section and under our Childhood section.
Thank you to all who made our event such a success, read more below.
We were delighted to see approximately 100 people join us, with some travelling even from the west and south of the country to attend.
The conversations were engaging and will continue on well after the event.
To have our Minister for State for Health, Jennifer Murnane O’Connor join and give an opening speech showed how far we have come with the recognition of obesity as a chronic recurring disease just like other non communicable diseases.
The Minister did not just attend and deliver her speech and go to another engagement. She stayed and spoke to the attendees, had many photographs taken and even listened to the next three speakers on the agenda.
She truly showed an interest and commitment to support our work in improving services for people living with obesity.
We thank all the speakers for giving their time and support. In particular the book reading was a poignant moment where we had our youths Mia and Cara read segments of the book with their respective mums Vicki and Bernadette.
Also, thank you to Niamh Arthurs of ASOI who read a segment in Irish.
Having the original authors join us on the night capped off a special event which highlighted and celebrated the work which began in Portugal last year by APCOI. Thank you Mario and Catarina!
- Raise awareness about obesity as a chronic disease
- Educate and raise awareness about obesity stigma
We also extend a huge thank you to Andrew Healing who helped with our technical and communications support on the night. Without his expertise we would have been lost.
Finally, nothing happens without our ICPO advocates, who without fail support and volunteer for these intiatives that we run. We look forward to continuing on together and growing our network of advocates over the next years to come!
