Lancet Diabetes EndocrinolWeight LossDecember 10, 2025

Obesity in China: current progress and future prospects.

Pan XF, Fang ZZ, Zhang L, Pan A

View on PubMed DOI: pii: S2213-8587(25)00357-2. 10.1016/S2213-8587(25)00357-2

Key Finding

China has approved five new GLP-1 receptor agonists since 2021 for weight management, dramatically expanding obesity treatment options, but faces challenges with diagnostic criteria, policy targets, and over-reliance on medications.

What This Study Found

Think of China's obesity crisis like a rapidly growing wildfire - the prevalence keeps climbing with mounting health and economic damage spreading across the landscape. The good news is that China's medical arsenal has suddenly gotten much bigger: since 2021, they've approved five powerful new GLP-1 weapons (liraglutide, beinaglutide, semaglutide, tirzepatide, and mazdutide) for fighting obesity, like adding five different types of fire trucks to tackle the blaze. This represents a major transformation in how obesity care works in China, giving doctors and patients many more therapeutic choices than ever before. However, the authors warn that having more fire trucks doesn't solve everything. China still faces three critical challenges that could undermine this progress: their current diagnostic criteria for obesity are like using a one-size-fits-all approach when people's bodies and metabolisms are actually very different; they lack specific, measurable national targets (imagine trying to fight a fire without clear goals for containment); and there aren't enough evidence-based guidelines for using these new medications properly, which risks doctors and patients becoming over-reliant on pills while ignoring the underlying environmental and social factors that fuel obesity in the first place.

Statistics Decoded

This abstract doesn't provide specific numerical statistics to decode - it's more of a policy and clinical landscape review. The key quantifiable finding is that five GLP-1 receptor agonists have been approved since 2021, representing a significant expansion from the limited options previously available. The authors reference 'mounting health and economic consequences' and 'continued increase over the last decade' but don't provide specific prevalence numbers or cost figures in this abstract.

Why This Matters

This matters because China has over 1.4 billion people, so obesity trends there affect global health patterns and pharmaceutical markets. The rapid approval of five GLP-1 drugs signals a major shift toward aggressive medical treatment of obesity, but the authors' warnings about over-medicalization and ignoring social determinants could influence how other countries approach their own obesity epidemics.

Original Abstract

The prevalence of overweight and obesity in China has continued to increase over the last decade, with mounting health and economic consequences. In this Personal View, we critically examine recent advances and identify current and emerging challenges in obesity across public health and policy, clinical research, and practice. National policy frameworks, technical health and nutrition guidelines, and multisectoral collaboration have elevated obesity on the public agenda. Evidence supporting lifestyle interventions and medications for obesity continues to accumulate. Since 2021, five additional GLP-1 receptor agonists (including liraglutide, beinaglutide, semaglutide, tirzepatide, and mazdutide) have been approved in China for weight management, broadening therapeutic choices and initiating a transformation in obesity care. Nevertheless, several key challenges remain which can undermine the sustained impact of the progress. These include limitations in existing diagnostic criteria for obesity which captures phenotypic and cardiometabolic heterogeneity; limited availability of quantifiable, actionable, and accountable national targets which weakens governance and evaluation; and a scarcity of evidence-based algorithms for obesity pharmacotherapy, which risks over-reliance on medication and diverts attention from socioeconomic, environmental, and behavioural determinants. We call for people-centred, integrated systems that embed whole-person obesity care within a planetary health framework and deliver a coherent continuum of prevention, treatment, and long-term support.