We need to see coordinated policies that improve access to healthy food, increase access to green spaces and regulate unhealthy food marketing to prevent childhood obesity | Image used for representational purposes only | Photo credit: Getty Images
Government-led programs that try to curb childhood obesity by educating parents are not working, an international study has found, with researchers calling for policies that prioritize community-wide solutions.
According to the World Health Organization, obesity is a major health crisis, with more than one in eight people worldwide being obese. By 2050, it is predicted that nearly 60 percent of adults and one-third of children will be obese.
Hoping to address the problem, governments around the world have launched programs to increase awareness among new parents about the importance of a balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle.
A new study published in the Lancet Medical Journal compiled results from 17 trials involving more than 9,000 babies in eight developed countries: Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States and Sweden.
The content of the programs varied frequently. Some involved indoor or outdoor training sessions, while others used awareness campaigns to emphasize the importance of nutrition and exercise or to highlight the risks of too much screen time.
But by the time the children turned two, their body mass index was similar to that of infants whose parents had not participated in any such program. “Our finding that the intervention was not effective is surprising and discouraging,” the international team of health researchers wrote in the study.
“Obesity is largely driven by environmental and socioeconomic factors that individuals are unable to change,” lead study author Kylie Hunter of the University of Sydney said in a statement.
“Parents have a vital role to play, but our research highlights that they cannot be expected to reduce childhood obesity rates alone,” she added. “We need to see coordinated policies that improve the availability of healthy foods, increase access to green spaces, and regulate unhealthy food marketing to tackle childhood obesity.”
The researchers cautioned that data on two-year-olds may not tell the whole story, and future studies will focus on data related to older children.
Published – September 13, 2025 04:22 PM IST
