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World Health Assembly opens: Director-General announces new initiative to end childhood obesity

2 little girls opening a present
May 20, 2014

World Health Organization – The World Health Assembly, the world’s health policy-making body, opened its Sixty-seventh session today with the election of Dr Roberto Tomas Morales Ojeda, Cubaā€™s Minister of Public Health, as its new President. Five vice-presidents were also appointed from Bahrain, Congo, Fiji, Lithuania, and Sri Lanka, representing their respective regions.


In her opening address to the Health Assembly, WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan voiced her deep concern about the increase worldwide of childhood obesity, with numbers climbing fastest in developing countries. ā€œAs the 2014 World Health Statistics report bluntly states, ā€˜Our children are getting fatterā€™,ā€ she said.

To gather the best possible advice on dealing with this crisis, Dr Chan announced that she has established a high-level Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity. The Commission – co-chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, Chief Science Advisor to New Zealandā€™s Prime Minister, and Dr Sania Nishtar, founder of Pakistanā€™s health policy think tank, Heartfile ā€“ will produce a consensus report specifying which approaches are likely to be most effective in different contexts around the world. The recommendations of the report will be announced at next yearā€™s Health Assembly.