The Commission will pursue four overarching goals:

1. Map the Global Data Landscape

Identify and evaluate existing datasets worldwide that can support prediction of obesity risk and treatment response.

2. Identify Gaps and Opportunities

Determine key scientific, clinical and structural barriers that limit effective obesity prevention and management.

3. Develop Advanced Clinical Decision Tools

Where sufficient data exist, build comprehensive clinical decision support systems using standardised data from global populations.

4. Create Adaptable Frameworks for Obesity Care

Develop practical frameworks and toolkits that can be tailored to different healthcare environments, populations and resource settings.

Current approaches to obesity management face several major limitations:

• Sustaining lifestyle-based weight loss is difficult for most individuals.
• While effective therapies exist (e.g. surgery and incretin-based medications), access remains challenge for many people most in need.
• Many patients discontinue medication due to side-effects, cost or stigma.
• After discontinuation of some medications, weight often returns to pre-treatment levels, sometimes with worsened metabolic health than prior to treatment.

These challenges highlight the urgent need for better tools to identify the right intervention for the right patient at the right time.

Modern medicine increasingly uses data-driven approaches to improve risk prediction, patient stratification and treatment selection. In obesity care, these approaches could allow health practitioners to:

• Predict an individual’s future risk of obesity-related disease
• Identify biological drivers of weight gain
• Determine which treatment options are most likely to succeed
• Evaluate risks, benefits and costs of treatment options

However, these methods must be rigorously validated across diverse global populations and assessed for accuracy, fairness and cost-effectiveness. Therefore, this Commission aims to generate new evidence and test it across global datasets to support the development of robust clinical decision-support tools.

Data Analysis Consortium

Cohort custodians and analysts worldwide will execute common analytical protocols in local datasets and contribute summary results for centralised data synthesis.

Advisors and Stakeholders

Experts in ethics, law, patient engagement, and economics will provide guidance to ensure responsible and inclusive research.

The Commission will produce several key outputs:

Commission Report: A comprehensive peer-reviewed report published in Nature Medicine summarising the findings and recommendations.

Scientific Publications: Supporting peer-reviewed primary research and framework papers describing key supportive data and models.

Global Data Landscape Analysis: An assessment of the availability and quality of obesity-related data worldwide.

Clinical Decision Support System: If data suffice, the Commission will develop a free web-based tool to assist health practitioners for:

• Prediction of obesity-related health risks
• Selection of optimal treatments
• Supporting personalised care strategies

Scientific advances alone do not guarantee real-world impact. Successful implementation requires engagement with health professionals, policymakers and patients.

The Commission will therefore:

• Develop practical implementation frameworks
• Engage with healthcare professionals and policymakers
• Conduct public and patient engagement activities
• Collaborate with international organizations to support adoption of its recommendations

Our ultimate goal is to improve global obesity care through accessible, evidence-based decision support tools.