Purpose
The Obesity Working Group brings together senior experts, system leaders, commissioners, clinicians, public health specialists, industry partners, voluntary sector organisations, and people with lived experience to support practical system change on obesity, metabolic health, and multimorbidity. The group builds on Curia’s NHS Obesity Sprint report and the Parliamentary Obesity Summit, translating the discussion into policy recommendations, commissioning options, Strategic Innovation Gateways and practical implementation support for local systems.
The Working Group promotes a whole-person, whole-system understanding of obesity, moving beyond blame, stigma, and fragmented interventions. Its focus includes trauma-informed practice, the relationship between adversity, stigma, mental health, and obesity, safe and equitable implementation of GLP-1, and related metabolic medicines, and the development of integrated pathways that combine clinical care, behavioural support, community provision, pharmacy, digital tools and long-term relapse prevention. It will also support refinement and adoption of the Five Domain Model of Obesity as a practical framework for systems and organisations.
The group is delivery focused. Through main working group meetings, task and finish groups, and gateway activity, it will develop practical tools, training, policy briefings, commissioning models, workforce support and implementation plans. Its work will help members shape a national narrative on obesity that is evidence based, trauma informed, equity led, and focused on measurable outcomes for patients, communities, the NHS, and the wider economy.
Strategic Ambition
The ambition of the Working Group is to support a new national and local approach to obesity that is:
whole-person and whole-system;
evidence-informed and clinically credible;
trauma-informed and stigma-aware;
equity-led and inclusive;
focused on prevention, treatment, recovery and long-term support;
grounded in lived experience;
capable of supporting system transformation, innovation adoption and improved outcomes.
The group will champion obesity as a complex, chronic and relapsing condition shaped by biology, psychology, trauma, stigma, inequality, wider determinants, environment, treatment access and system design.
Working Group Arrangements
Each subgroup will have a named lead, agreed scope, clear outputs and reporting route into the main Working Group.
Specialist groups will meet as required, aligned to the annual workplan and agreed outputs.
Members may be asked to lead or contribute to specialist group activity as part of their commitment to the Working Group.
Meetings may be held online, in person or as hybrid sessions, depending on the purpose of the meeting and accessibility requirements.
Two golden threads
Trauma-informed and responsive practice
Every pathway, service, conversation and workforce interaction should reduce shame, threat and judgement, while increasing safety, dignity, choice, collaboration and trust.
Equity and inclusion
Inequalities should be designed out from the start, ensuring pathways are accessible and fair across ethnicity, deprivation, disability, neurodiversity, gender, geography, digital access, trauma exposure and treatment need.
Five domains of the working group
Biology and metabolic health
Understanding obesity as a chronic, relapsing metabolic condition shaped by biology, genetics, neurobiology, appetite regulation, inflammation, functional health and multimorbidity.
Psychology, trauma and emotional regulation
Exploring how trauma, stress, shame, stigma, disordered eating, mental health, neurodiversity and coping responses shape obesity, engagement and recovery.
Wider determinants and obesogenic environments
Addressing the social, economic, environmental and commercial conditions that drive obesity, inequality, exclusion and unequal access to care.
Protective factors, resilience and recovery
Strengthening the assets, relationships, confidence, community connection, purpose, movement, hope and support that enable people to live well and recover.
Treatment, care and long-term support
Designing safe, personalised and joined-up pathways across GLP-1 medicines, specialist care, primary care, pharmacy, psychological support, digital tools and long-term maintenance.
Objectives
Translate insight into action:
Turn the recommendations from the West Yorkshire Obesity Sprint and Parliamentary Obesity Summit into practical tools, policy outputs, pathway models, commissioning support and implementation plans.
Deliver Strategic Innovation Gateways:
Convene targeted gateway sessions with systems, providers, commissioners, industry, academia and policy partners to solve specific pathway, commissioning, workforce, data or innovation challenges.
Create pathway diagnostics and readiness tools:
Develop structured diagnostic products that help systems understand where their obesity pathways are safe, unsafe, fragmented, inequitable, under-resourced or not trauma informed.
Build trauma-informed obesity expertise:
Develop a specialist training and implementation offer on the trauma of obesity, weight stigma, shame, safety, trust, psychologically safe conversations and relational continuity.
Support safe implementation of GLP-1 and metabolic medicines:
Ensure medicines are not implemented as standalone interventions, but as part of holistic pathways that include triage, clinical governance, psychological support, behavioural support, equity, long-term maintenance and real-world outcomes.
Strengthen workforce capability and confidence:
Support clinical, commissioning, provider, VCSE, public health, community, pharmacy, primary care and neighbourhood workforces to understand obesity through biology, psychology, trauma, determinants, protective factors and treatment.
Influence policy and investment:
Build the case for obesity as a health, inequalities, workforce, productivity and economic issue, supporting policy briefings, parliamentary outputs, Treasury-facing arguments and national implementation asks. The summit briefing explicitly frames obesity as a major economic and workforce issue requiring whole-system action.
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