New guidelines warn against obesity drugs for young children

Estimates suggest 170 million children and adolescents worldwide are obese.

That includes 70 million children aged 5–9. Obesity prevalence in this age group has quadrupled since 1990, rising from 2% to 8%.

In 2024, 35 million children under the age of five were overweight.

Obesity increases the risk of many different diseases, including type 2 diabetes.

Dr Luz De Rigil, Director of Nutrition and Food Safety at WHO, said: “For children under 10, WHO does not recommend obesity medicines, bariatric surgery or weight-management devices. This is a strong recommendation.”

These might be appropriate for older children and adolescents when lifestyle approaches have failed and if the individual is “mentally and physically prepared” for the treatment, she added.

She said WHO recognises this is an evolving field and will continue to evaluate the evidence.

WHO’s head of Nutrition and Food Safety Actions, Laurence Grummer-Strawn, said: “We are particularly concerned in this age group, if you are starting children very early on to using a GLP-1 or drugs like this, when does that stop?

“We don’t really have evidence that you can use this as a temporary treatment and then turn to something dietary later on in life.

“We are very cautious about jumping in without clear evidence,” he said.