New Delhi: With obesity emerging as a major public health challenge in India, AIIMS Director Dr Nikhil Tandon on Saturday said preventing weight gain from an early age should be prioritised, as losing and sustaining weight loss after becoming obese is extremely difficult.
Inaugurating the AIIMS Obesity Summit 2026 here, Tandon said efforts to prevent obesity must begin early in life rather than waiting until adulthood, as eating habits and lifestyle patterns are shaped during childhood.
"Obesity is not driven by biological factors alone but is also influenced by behavioural, environmental and cultural factors, making prevention a wider societal challenge," he said.
Tandon also underlined the particular vulnerability of South Asians, saying they can develop metabolic complications such as diabetes at relatively lower BMI levels because of greater central fat accumulation. He emphasised that obesity assessment should not be based solely on numerical BMI thresholds but also consider an individual's health outcomes.
Obesity is fast emerging as one of India's major public health challenges, with doctors at AIIMS warning that it can no longer be viewed as an issue of excess weight but as a chronic disease linked to diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, fatty liver, sleep apnoea and several other metabolic complications.
The two-day summit, being held on September 5 and 6, brings together physicians, endocrinologists, nutritionists, surgeons and other specialists to discuss the growing burden of obesity and ways to improve its management.
Dr Naveet Wig, head of the department of Medicine at AIIMS-Delhi, said the changing food environment, sedentary lifestyles, inadequate physical activity and increasing consumption of calorie-dense processed foods are adding to the problem.
"Obesity is increasingly a reflection of the way our lifestyles and food environment have changed," he said.
"Easy availability of calorie-dense and highly processed foods, larger portion sizes and a shift towards more sedentary routines have created a setting where excess weight gain is becoming increasingly common. We cannot look at obesity simply as a matter of individual choice or lack of discipline. Regular physical activity has declined while screen time and prolonged sitting have increased, particularly among younger people," he added.
Wig said that tackling obesity will require a sustained shift towards healthier food choices, greater physical activity and better lifestyle habits.
Prevention has to start early, with families, schools and workplaces all playing a role in creating an environment that makes healthy choices easier, he further said.
Dr Naval K Vikram, professor of medicine at AIIMS and organising chairman of the summit, stressed the need to look beyond BMI while assessing obesity among Indians.
According to Vikram, abdominal fat and the metabolic impact of obesity are particularly important in the Indian population.
Obesity accompanied by clinical symptoms and organ involvement is more concerning, and treatment decisions should take abdominal adiposity into account, he said.
AIIMS experts say Indians may develop metabolic complications at comparatively lower levels of BMI because of a tendency towards greater abdominal and visceral fat.
Dr Piyush Ranjan, professor of medicine at AIIMS, has been closely involved in work on obesity and lifestyle-related diseases and was among the authors of the AIIMS-DST initiative that developed evidence-based guidelines for managing overweight and obesity in midlife women.
The guidelines underline that obesity management needs to move beyond generic advice on diet and exercise and should take into account an individual's metabolic risk, life stage and associated health conditions.
The challenge is particularly significant because obesity is increasingly being seen across age groups.
The AIIMS summit has dedicated sessions to childhood and adolescent obesity, obesity in women and older adults, nutrition, metabolic complications and advanced treatment options. The growing number of patients with severe obesity is also putting pressure on tertiary-care hospitals.
Recently, AIIMS treated a 32-year-old man weighing 209 kg who had severe obesity along with hypertension, prediabetes, obstructive sleep apnoea, dyslipidaemia and other complications. Dr Vikram was part of the multidisciplinary team managing his medical problems before bariatric surgery.
He said such cases illustrate why obesity needs early intervention instead of being addressed only after serious complications develop.
The treatment landscape has also changed considerably with the availability of anti-obesity medicines, including GLP-1-based therapies, but doctors caution that medication should be used as part of comprehensive obesity care and not as a substitute for long-term lifestyle and behavioural changes.
The AIIMS summit is accordingly focusing on an integrated approach involving nutrition, physical activity, behavioural interventions, medicines and metabolic or bariatric surgery for appropriately selected patients, Vikram said.
With obesity increasingly intersecting with India's diabetes, cardiovascular and fatty-liver burden, experts say prevention needs to begin early and extend beyond hospitals to families, schools, workplaces and the wider food environment.
Vikram also emphasised that obesity should be treated as a chronic disease rather than a consequence of lack of willpower, with greater focus on early identification, reduction of stigma and access to evidence-based treatment.