WHO Issues Landmark Global Guideline on Weight-Loss Medicines, Declaring Obesity a Chronic Disease
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND — December 1, 2025
A Landmark Global Guideline: WHO’s New Stance on Weight-Loss Medicines and Declaring Obesity a Chronic Disease
The World Health Organization (WHO), headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, delivered a pivotal and long-awaited announcement today, establishing a landmark global guideline on the use of a new class of weight-loss medicines and, crucially, formally declaring obesity a chronic, relapsing disease.
This historic shift in global health policy, moving away from viewing obesity purely as a lifestyle choice, ushers in a new era for treating a condition that affects over one billion people worldwide and contributes to millions of preventable deaths annually.
The new guidance provides conditional recommendations for the use of Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists—a powerful class of pharmacotherapies including well-known agents like semaglutide (Wegovy, Ozempic) and tirzepatide (Zepbound, Mounjaro)—as a long-term treatment option for adults living with obesity (defined as a Body Mass Index of 30 or higher).
While the WHO had previously added GLP-1s to its Essential Medicines List for managing Type 2 diabetes in high-risk groups, this is the first time the global body has officially endorsed medication for obesity treatment itself.
The comprehensive guideline, developed at the request of WHO Member States, aims to provide countries with an evidence-based framework for building equitable and sustainable obesity care programs.
The central message, championed by WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is clear:
obesity is a complex, progressive illness that requires lifelong, multi-modal care, not just individual willpower.
Headline Points
Official Designation:
WHO formally classifies obesity as a chronic, progressive, and relapsing disease requiring lifelong care, marking a historic policy shift.
Medication Endorsement:
Conditional recommendations issued for the long-term use of GLP-1 receptor agonists (like semaglutide and tirzepatide) for adults with a BMI of 30 or higher.
Comprehensive Approach:
WHO stresses that medication must be coupled with intensive behavioral support, including healthy diets and regular physical activity.
Global Access Crisis:
Urgent action called for on manufacturing, tiered pricing, and voluntary licensing to address the critical lack of affordability and supply, warning that fewer than 10% of those who could benefit will have access by 2030.
Health System Preparedness:
Countries are urged to prepare their health systems for the complexity and long-term nature of delivering this new class of care.
The “New Chapter” in Obesity Care
The WHO’s action represents what many in the medical community are calling a “scientific breakthrough” and a “new chapter” in how society approaches this pervasive health challenge.
For decades, the global response to obesity has been fragmented and often hampered by stigma, underfunding, and the outdated view of it being a simple result of energy imbalance.
“Our new guidance recognises that obesity is a chronic disease that can be treated with comprehensive and lifelong care,” said Dr. Ghebreyesus.
“While medication alone won’t solve this global health crisis, GLP-1 therapies can help millions overcome obesity and reduce its associated harms.”
The conditional nature of the recommendations is significant. It acknowledges the moderate-certainty evidence for the drugs’ efficacy and safety in the short to medium term, particularly in reducing risks for serious co-morbidities like heart attacks, strokes, Type 2 diabetes, and kidney disease.
However, it also reflects major uncertainties, particularly surrounding long-term safety data, the potential for weight regain once treatment ceases, and the profound economic barriers to global access.
Equity and System Readiness: The Critical Barriers
The biggest concern articulated by the WHO is the issue of global equity and access. Currently, the soaring demand for GLP-1 therapies far outstrips global manufacturing capacity.
Even with aggressive production expansion plans by pharmaceutical giants, the WHO projects that the drugs will only reach a tiny fraction of the over one billion people who could medically benefit from them by the end of the decade.
The economic toll of this disparity is staggering.
The WHO estimates that the annual global cost of obesity and its associated complications will exceed $3 trillion USD by 2030. Without deliberate policies to address affordability, the new guideline risks exacerbating existing health disparities, benefiting only wealthy nations and privileged individuals.
To combat this, the WHO is urgently calling for three key actions:
Manufacturing Scale-up:
Rapid expansion of production capacity worldwide.
Affordability Measures:
Strategies like pooled procurement mechanisms, tiered pricing systems based on national income, and voluntary licensing to allow generic manufacturing in lower-income nations.
Health System Overhaul:
The necessity for all nations to strengthen primary health care, establish robust supply chain oversight, and train qualified health professionals for long-term patient monitoring and support.
The UK Perspective: A British Mandate
(As the Castle Journal (CJ Global) is a British newspaper, a UK-specific perspective is added here to enhance relevance, as requested in your standing instructions for details and location)
London-UK, CJ Global Newspaper:
This landmark guideline will have immediate and significant implications for the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).
The UK was an early adopter, licensing semaglutide (Wegovy) for weight loss and beginning to make it available on the NHS.
The WHO’s official endorsement strengthens the clinical argument for long-term, public-funded access to these medications.
For British policy-makers, the guideline reinforces the need to move beyond episodic care and integrate obesity treatment into a chronic care model.
It also places new scrutiny on the government’s commitment to ensuring that the health service has the budgetary and logistical capacity to sustain thousands of patients on complex, lifelong medication, without draining resources from prevention and non-pharmacological interventions.
Health policy experts in London today stated that the WHO’s warning on unequal access should serve as a wake-up call for the government to proactively secure long-term, cost-effective supplies.
The challenge now lies in translating this global scientific breakthrough into equitable, everyday care on the ground across the UK.
