World Obesity Day takes place on Saturday, March 4
World Obesity Day Europe, held each year to draw attention to Europe’s growing obesity epidemic and the need for better prevention and treatment, will take place on Saturday, March 4.
Individuals, healthcare providers and organisations throughout Europe will be participating in events ranging from free health check-ups and healthy eating advice to holding virtual open days at hospitals and treatment centres and information and training workshops for patients and healthcare professionals.
The campaign, which is part of global World Obesity Day, is an initiative of the European Coalition for People Living with Obesity (ECPO) and is held in collaboration with the European Association for the Study of Obesity (EASO).
In the spirit of the tagline, Addressing Obesity Together, people from all walks of life are being encouraged to participate in creating greater awareness and understanding of obesity, which is predicted to affect more than half of the European population by 2030.
According to World Health Organization, obesity is one of the greatest public health challenges of the 21st century as its prevalence has tripled in many countries in Europe since the 1980s.
In particular, ECPO wants to draw attention to the impact that obesity has on society and the economy and the huge benefits to be gained from prevention and treatment.
Among the European initiatives being held to coincide with World Obesity Day will be a special World Obesity Day edition of the ECPO Patient Lounge. A panel of distinguished guests will talk about the importance of addressing obesity together, and there will be reports from patient associations from around Europe.
Numerous World Obesity Day Europe events will also be taking place at national and local levels and will be publicised extensively on social media (@ObesityDayEU #ObesityDayEurope on Twitter).
Among them are events in the Czech Republic, Germany and Italy.
In the Czech Republic, experts from STOB (Scientific Society) and patients from STOB Klub (patient organisation) with the support of ECPO will offer free health checks and advice from healthcare professionals in different cities around the country. A list of locations will be available at https://www.stob.cz/cs/svetovy-den-obezity-2023.
In Germany, an OPEN event “Living with obesity” – patients and experts in dialogue, will be held on March 4 from 13:00 in Frankfurt.
Invited speakers from the obesity patient community and health experts will discuss what could be improved for better care in the future. More information is available at https://acsdev.de/Veranstaltung/wat23.
In Italy, ECPO’s member association Amici Obesi Onlus will premiere “Obesity/From” a monologue play about a journey of a person living with obesity since childhood, performed by an Italian actress and bariatric patient, Mrs. Donatella Liotta. After the show, a debate will take place between patients and healthcare professionals. From 15:00 to 19:00 at the Teatro Tertulliano, Milan. info@amiciobesi.it
The ECPO image bank of photographs continues to be expanded and updated in conjunction with more than 20 patient organisations across 27 European countries.
The image bank has been created to help change people’s attitudes to overweight and obesity. It consists of more than 250 professionally taken photographs to support editors in selecting less stigmatising images for use in newspapers and magazines.
Further details on World Obesity Day and where to find more information on obesity and obesity prevention and treatment are available on the World Obesity Day Europe website: woday.eu.
For further information, please contact Mario Silva (mario@eurobesity.org) or Vicki Mooney at ECPO (vicki@eurobesity.org) Tel: +34 687391566
For further information on World Obesity Day Europe please see https://woday.eu/; on ECPO https://eurobesity.org/ and on EASO please see https://easoarchive.easo.org/,