Guidance
This guideline covers behaviours such as diet and physical activity to help children (after weaning), young people and adults maintain a healthy weight or help prevent excess weight gain. The aim is to prevent a range of diseases and conditions including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes and improve mental wellbeing.
The recommendations support those made in other NICE guidelines about how to prevent people becoming overweight or obese. This includes interventions and activities in which weight is not the primary outcome, such as those aimed at preventing cardiovascular disease or type 2 diabetes, improving mental wellbeing or increasing active travel.
Recommendations
This guideline includes recommendations on:
- how to encourage people to make changes in line with existing advice
- how to encourage physical activity and a diet that reduces the risk of excess energy intake
- further advice for parents and carers of children and young people
- how to encourage adults to limit the amount of alcohol they drink
- how to clearly communicate the benefits of making gradual improvements to physical activity and dietary habits
- how to tailor messages for specific groups
- how to ensure activities are integrated with the local strategic approach to obesity
Who is it for?
- Commissioners and practitioners
- Members of the public
Is this guideline up to date?
March 2017: We have checked this guideline and it will be updated. For more information, see the surveillance decision. See the guideline in development page for progress on the update.
Guideline development process
How we develop NICE guidelines
This guideline was previously called maintaining a healthy weight and preventing excess weight gain among adults and children.
This guideline replaces section 1.1.1 of NICE's guideline CG43 on obesity (December 2006, updated March 2015).
Your responsibility
The recommendations in this guideline represent the view of NICE, arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available. When exercising their judgement, professionals and practitioners are expected to take this guideline fully into account, alongside the individual needs, preferences and values of their patients or the people using their service. It is not mandatory to apply the recommendations, and the guideline does not override the responsibility to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual, in consultation with them and their families and carers or guardian.
All problems (adverse events) related to a medicine or medical device used for treatment or in a procedure should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency using the Yellow Card Scheme.
Local commissioners and providers of healthcare have a responsibility to enable the guideline to be applied when individual professionals and people using services wish to use it. They should do so in the context of local and national priorities for funding and developing services, and in light of their duties to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, to advance equality of opportunity and to reduce health inequalities. Nothing in this guideline should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with complying with those duties.
Commissioners and providers have a responsibility to promote an environmentally sustainable health and care system and should assess and reduce the environmental impact of implementing NICE recommendations wherever possible.