Announcement of an updated Belgian consensus on the assessment and management of obesity.

A Belgian updated consensus on the assessment and management of obesity. Obesity is the most prevalent chronic disease worldwide. The negative impacts of weight excess and obesity are considerable at the individual and collective levels, spreading across physical, mental, quality-of-life, societal and economic aspects. To give an example, only considering the economic burden of this health problem, a recent analysis estimated that weight excess reduces gross domestic product by 3.3% in OECD countries and those developed countries will spend 8.4% of their health budget to treat the consequences of excess weight.1 Fortunately, there are also favorable prospects for this health problem. The same analysis predicted that every single US dollar invested in addressing overweight will result in 5.6 US dollars of return in terms of economic benefits. At the individual level, it is proven that obesity management programs can improve or revert many symptoms or co-morbidities associated with obesity. [...]