The HGPI Obesity Control Promotion Project Global Expert Meeting "The Next Steps for Engaging and Cooperating with Patients, Citizens, and Communities for Obesity Control"

The Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI) Obesity Control Promotion Project will host the Global Expert Meeting "The Next Steps for Engaging and Cooperating with Patients, Citizens, and Communities for Obesity Control." This symposium requires advance registration.

Compounded factors like lifestyle changes and urbanization have led to the growing prevalence of obesity, chronic diseases, and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in developed and developing societies. For many years, this transformation has been called a "Silent Pandemic." In Japan, a number of measures have been implemented to prevent obesity, a known factor for many chronic diseases. Since 2008, all insurers have been obligated to conduct specific medical checkups and provide specific health guidance for obesity. In addition, health examinations called "metabolic checkups" have made the technical term "metabolic syndrome" widely understood among the Japanese public. This has elevated public awareness toward the health hazards of obesity and can be considered a symbolic paradigm shift in policy.

However, methods for approaching cases of obesity that require medical intervention are different from those for general obesity, so various types of interventions including prevention should be discussed. In prevention and intervention for general obesity, it is crucial for there to be a social environment that facilitates lifestyle habit management in terms of nutrition and physical activity and that has fewer of the psychological stress factors that cause obesity. Correlations have also been established among health and conditions like income and living environment, which are known as Social Determinants of Health (SDH). Society must avoid resorting to the concept of personal responsibility and cooperate to encourage better health to prevent income and education disparities from becoming health disparities. Globally, there are various scientific approaches to providing medical and pharmaceutical interventions for obesity and expectations are high for clinical guidelines to be formulated or updated to meet the needs of Japan today.

In light of these circumstances, HGPI launched the Obesity Control Promotion Project in 2022 with the objectives of heightening interest in general obesity and obesity requiring medical intervention throughout society and building momentum for more effective, organic measures for obesity control. As our first initiative for this project, we gathered an advisory board representing specialists in various fields who exchanged opinions and identified the discussion points described in the following pages.

• The Advisory Board Meeting for "Engaging and Cooperating with Patients, Citizens, and Communities for Obesity Prevention" (September 22, 2022)

This symposium aims to discuss with multi-stakeholder groups in Japan and overseas the current issues raised in the described discussion points, the future prospects for combating obesity, and the next steps to be taken, and to disseminate these to society at large. In addition, the discussion will be deepened by presenting best practices and lessons learned in Europe. After the symposium, summary of the event and extracted policy brief will be disseminated to relevant stakeholders and policymakers.

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