Lessons from APEC economies on obesity prevention programs

Australia's growing waistline mirrors a trend sweeping the wider Asia-Pacific, with two-thirds of adults now classified as overweight or obese according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Communities from Seoul to Santiago have spent the last decade testing different approaches to reverse these numbers, producing a rich collection of insights that policymakers, clinicians and public-health advocates can draw from when designing their own initiatives.

The 2023 APEC gathering in Brisbane served as a rare opportunity to compare notes across economies of vastly different scales, cultures and incomes. Speakers outlined programmes that tackled childhood adiposity through schools, reformed urban food environments through taxation, and used digital tools to reach older residents living alone in regional towns. Their shared message was that medical clinics alone cannot reverse the obesity tide — coordinated efforts at the neighbourhood, workplace and policy level are essential.

Why community settings matter for sustainable weight outcomes

Clinical weight-management programmes often produce short-term results that fade once participants return home. Researchers presenting at the conference repeatedly emphasised that sustainable change happens when the surrounding environment supports healthier choices, whether that means safer walking paths, easier access to fresh produce, or social norms that prize movement over sedentary leisure.

In Japan, the so-called "Metabo Law" requires companies to measure waistlines of employees between 40 and 74 and refer those above threshold to counselling. While controversial, the policy has been credited with slowing the rise in metabolic syndrome and demonstrates how a workplace becomes a natural intervention site for an aging workforce. Singapore's "Healthier Dining Programme" pushes the same logic into hawker centres, where stallholders earn recognition for offering lower-calorie options, allowing patrons to make informed choices without sacrificing the communal eating culture that anchors so many Asian neighbourhoods.

Australia can recognise similarities with these efforts. The LiveLighter campaign, funded by the Victorian and West Australian health departments, has used graphic advertising to encourage shoppers to swap sugary drinks for water. The campaign's success in Adelaide and regional Queensland shows that locally tailored messaging — referencing the local footy club, for example — resonates more than generic national advertisements. Tasmania's "Move Well Eat Well" programme adds another layer by linking local schools, sports clubs and food retailers, demonstrating how a small jurisdiction can mobilise an entire community around healthier habits.

School-based interventions across the region

Children spend a large share of their waking hours inside school grounds, making education institutions a powerful setting for shaping lifelong dietary habits. Several APEC economies have used schools as testing grounds for ambitious reform, and the results provide useful templates for Australian state governments grappling with childhood obesity rates above 25 per cent in some suburbs.

South Korea's "Nuri Curriculum" embeds nutrition and movement into early childhood education, with kindergarteners taught to recognise vegetables and engage in structured play. Taiwan has gone further, banning the sale of sugary drinks on school campuses and restricting deep-fried foods to twice per week. Mexico's tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, introduced in 2014, has been linked to a measurable drop in purchases, with the largest reductions occurring in lower-income households that tend to bear a heavier obesity burden.

For Australia, where the federal government already funds the National Healthy School Canteens initiative, the regional lessons suggest tightening supply chains rather than relying solely on menu guidelines. Schools in Perth have experimented with "kitchen garden" programmes that mirror Stephanie Alexander's original Victorian model, giving students hands-on experience growing and cooking produce. Embedding similar curricula in more remote and Indigenous community schools — particularly across the Northern Territory — could help close the widening gap in childhood weight status between urban and remote Australia. Some Queensland state schools have already begun banning advertising of unhealthy foods on campus grounds and restricting uniforms branded by fast-food chains, signalling a shift in how the school environment itself is being regulated.

Workplace wellness and the role of employers

Adults in full-time employment spend roughly a third of their day at work, and employers across APEC are increasingly recognising that staff health influences productivity, absenteeism and healthcare costs. The conference heard from representatives of major Korean chaebols and Japanese manufacturers who have built fitness facilities, subsidised healthy meals and offered paid time for movement breaks.

Chile's "Elige Vivir Sano" programme partners with employers to provide on-site nutrition counselling, while Thailand's "Thai Walking" campaign encourages civil servants to accumulate thirty minutes of brisk walking during the working day. These programmes share a common feature: they treat adiposity as a workforce issue rather than an individual failing, and they rely on employers as both gatekeepers and enablers of behaviour change.

Australian employers are following suit, particularly in mining and resources sectors where fly-in fly-out rosters create unique health risks. Companies operating in the Pilbara have introduced on-site gyms, dietitian consultations and culturally appropriate menus that reflect their largely Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workforce. Smaller employers in Melbourne's inner north have clustered together to share a mobile health coach who visits each worksite fortnightly — a creative workaround for businesses too small to fund their own wellness infrastructure. Several Canberra-based public service agencies have begun offering standing-desk subsidies and lunchtime yoga sessions, drawing inspiration from Singapore's civil-service fitness initiatives.

Fiscal and regulatory levers that shifted behaviours

Taxes and labelling rules are blunt instruments, yet conference delegates from Mexico, the United Kingdom and the Philippines presented evidence that well-designed fiscal measures can shift population behaviour within months rather than years. Mexico's peso-per-litre excise on sweetened drinks has raised billions for health spending, while the Philippines' expanded "Sin Tax Reform Law" covers both tobacco and ultra-processed foods high in sugar, salt and fat.

Front-of-pack warning labels, pioneered in Chile and now adopted in Israel, Mexico and parts of Canada, force manufacturers to reformulate products or risk losing sales. Brazil's dietary guidelines, written without industry interference, encourage traditional eating patterns built around beans, vegetables and minimally processed foods, providing a cultural counterweight to the global rise of ultra-processed convenience meals.

Australian regulators have so far favoured voluntary schemes, including the Health Star Rating system, though a Senate inquiry in 2023 recommended moving toward mandatory adoption. Lessons from across APEC suggest that voluntary systems tend to be applied most by already-healthy products while leaving the worst offenders unlabelled. New Zealand, having already legislated a front-of-pack system in collaboration with Australia, offers a useful comparator for what a mandatory framework might achieve in reducing population-level adiposity. Several Pacific Island neighbours, including Fiji and Samoa, have already moved to ban imports of certain high-sugar products, underlining the urgency with which smaller economies view the issue.

Digital tools and reaching older residents

Older Australians carry a disproportionate share of the obesity burden, and digital health interventions have emerged as a promising way to reach those living independently in suburbs and regional towns. Korea's "Silver Care" platform sends personalised text messages to seniors, reminding them of upcoming community exercise classes and offering seasonal recipes that incorporate locally available ingredients. Japan's prefectural governments use similar platforms to track physical activity through step counters distributed at community centres.

In Australia, the CSIRO's "Total Wellbeing Diet" has been adapted into an online programme tailored for adults over 60, with content co-designed with older participants in Hobart and Geelong. The University of Queensland's research into telehealth-delivered dietetics has demonstrated comparable outcomes to in-person care, suggesting that rural Queenslanders — who previously had limited contact with allied health professionals — can be supported at scale.

Conference delegates agreed that digital tools work best when paired with human contact. A simple weekly phone call from a peer mentor in Perth's outer suburbs produced measurable weight loss among participants in a Curtin University trial, reminding attendees that technology should complement community relationships rather than replace them. The NSW Government's "Active and Healthy" online programme offers another Australian example, connecting older residents with free or low-cost local activity options through a searchable map of parks, walking groups and gentle exercise classes.

Bringing lessons home to Australian communities

The conference closed with a workshop where Australian delegates — many from state health departments and primary health networks — mapped APEC lessons onto local contexts. Three priorities emerged: tighter regulation of food marketing aimed at children, expansion of workplace wellness incentives, and investment in culturally appropriate programmes for First Nations communities where obesity rates remain significantly higher than the national average.

Local councils also have a role. Cities like Brisbane, Sydney and Darwin already support community kitchens, farmers' markets and free exercise programmes in public spaces, yet these efforts are often fragmented. Drawing on Taiwan's coordinated approach to school nutrition and Korea's employer-led screening, Australian councils could knit these initiatives into a coherent local strategy with shared metrics and pooled funding. Embedding obesity prevention within broader plans addressing food insecurity, mental health and ageing well would amplify the impact and reach the Australians most in need.

For practitioners and policymakers seeking deeper resources, the conference programme book, presentation slides and recorded sessions remain available through the official event website, offering a useful starting point for anyone designing the next generation of community-based obesity programmes. Anyone wishing to follow up with specific speakers or working groups can reach the organising committee through the conference contact page.