Overweight and obesity

The National Obesity Strategy 2022–2032 (NOS), agreed to by all Australian health ministers, is a framework for action to prevent, reduce and treat overweight and obesity in Australia. It recognises that the root causes of overweight or obesity are complex and embedded in the way we live. To prevent and manage overweight and obesity requires changes to systems, environments and commercial determinants that affect Australians’ opportunities to live healthy lives (Commonwealth of Australia 2022).

The National Obesity Strategy has a strong focus on obesity prevention. With prevention as a priority, the National Obesity Strategy aligns with the implementation of the National Preventive Health Strategy 2021–2030 (NPHS). The vision of this strategy is to improve the health and well-being of all Australians at all stage of life through prevention (Department of Health 2021). It outlines the long-term approach to prevention in Australia by building systemic changes. It recognises that effective prevention is a responsibility shared by all governments and non-government sectors, as well as research and academia, the private sector and industries, communities and individuals (Department of Health 2021).

Prevention occurs along a continuum and in the context of obesity prevention, includes (Commonwealth of Australia 2022):

• Primordial prevention, which addresses the wider determinants of health and aims to create environments that are supportive of healthy living, such as access to healthy food and safe spaces for physical activity.
• Primary prevention, which aims to reduce the risk factors that contribute to diseases, such as poor dietary intake and low physical activity levels.
• Secondary prevention, which aims to identify unhealthy weight gain early on and providing management strategies.
• Tertiary prevention, which aims to reduce harms for people living with obesity through support and treatment.

As the leading risk factor contributing to ill health and death, obesity prevention also aligns with the prevention and self-management of risk factors and conditions focus area of the National Strategic Framework for Chronic Conditions.

The objectives of the NOS and the NPHS to prevent and address overweight and obesity are supported through national guidelines and initiatives, such as the:

• 24–hour movement guidelines which provide guidance on how much physical activity Australians should do every day, to achieve optimal health.
• Dietary guidelines which provide recommendations for eating a variety of nutritious foods from the 5 food groups.
• Health Food Partnership which brings together governments, the public health sector and the food industry to work on creating environments where healthy foods are more accessible.
• Healthy Food Partnership Reformulation Program which aims to reduce the amount of sugar, sodium and saturated fat in processed and manufactured foods.

For more information, What we’re doing about overweight and obesity by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.

Monitoring overweight and obesity

Population monitoring is important to understanding the health of the population and the need for treatments and services.

The NOS and NPHS have identified areas of focus for priority action and outline key measurable targets that Australia should be striving for by 2030 (NPHS) and 2032 (NOS).

The 2 strategies share the following overweight and obesity targets:

• Halt the rise and reverse the trend in the prevalence of obesity in adults by 2030.
• Reduce overweight or obesity in children and adolescents aged 2–17 years by at least 5% by 2030.

Current assessment of the progress of the targets shows that:

• the proportion of adults aged 18 and over living with obesity has increased from 31% in 2017–18 to 33% in 2022–24 (ABS 2019b, AIHW analysis of ABS 2025b). After adjusting for age, this was a statistically significant change.
• the proportion of children and adolescents aged 2–17 living with overweight or obesity has not changed significantly between 2017–18 (25%) and 2022–24 (27%) (ABS 2018, AIHW analysis of ABS 2025b).

While current progress against the baseline from 2017–18 has shown small increasing and stabilising trends in overweight or obesity in adults and children, respectively, further monitoring is required for determining whether Australia will meet these targets.

For more information, see National preventive health monitoring dashboard.