PRESS RELEASE
February 25, 2026
World Obesity Day Europe Awards Winners Announced
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Ahead of World Obesity Day 2026 on March 4, organisations from six countries have been named winners of the World Obesity Day Europe Awards for 2025.
The awards are presented annually by the European Coalition for People Living with Obesity (ECPO) and the European Association for the Study of Obesity (EASO) for activities and initiatives related to World Obesity Day in Europe.
The winners for 2025 are Adipositas Verband Deutschland e.V., Germany; SFO, Iceland; La Mattina Dopo odv, Italy; OBEClust, Europe; The Israeli Forum for the Prevention of Weight Bias, Ariel University and Tel-Aviv Assuta Medical Center, Israel; and PAS GRAS, Portugal.
Adipositas Verband Deutschland e.V., Germany and SFO, Iceland, were the joint winners of the ECPO Best Patient or Public Engagement Programme Award.
Adipositas Verband Deutschland won the award for the short film they produced to raise awareness of obesity as a chronic disease. It was promoted extensively on social media, published on their website, and used for meetings, lectures, and information events with patients and medical practitioners.
SFO, Iceland, organised a major event that brought together key stakeholders to raise awareness and strengthen collaboration among policymakers, healthcare professionals, and individuals living with obesity including representatives from FFO (Félag fagfólks um offitu), policymakers from the healthcare system and the Ministry of Health, healthcare professionals from health centres, hospitals, and treatment institutions, and a wide group of the association’s members and individuals living with obesity.
The association also launched and presented the Icelandic edition of the book “Mom, What is Obesity?”
The ECPO Award for Best Participation and Engagement from NCD Partners was won by La Mattina Dopo odv for their campaign Body, Stereotypes and Prejudices: The Weight of Words. The project highlighted the stigma problem, especially around weight and young people, and included a heavyweight social media campaign as well as meetings with students and healthcare professionals.
OBEClust – The European Cluster of Obesity Research Projects – won the EASO Award for Best Collaborative Project. OBEClust comprises nine EU-funded projects working to address the obesity crisis in Europe: PAS GRAS, BIO-STREAMS, OBCT, eprObes, Obelisk, CoDiet, BETTER4U, SHIFT2HEALTH, and HealthyW8.
This cluster is addressing obesity across different areas: Preventing and addressing childhood & adolescent obesity (BIO-STREAMS; Obelisk; PAS GRAS); Early identification & prevention of obesity (eprObes, BETTER4U); Lifestyle & behavioural interventions (HealthyW8; SHIFT2HEALTH); Obesity risks & determinants (OBCT); and diet-related non-communicable diseases (CoDiet).
The OBEClust partners launched several initiatives, including a joint press release with a potential reach of more than 2 million; an in-person workshop in Brussels for World Obesity Day, active web and social media campaigns, and a free public webinar on Artificial Intelligence and obesity prevention.
The Israeli Forum for the Prevention of Weight Bias, Ariel University and Assuta Medical Centers are the winners of the EASO World Obesity Day 2025 Best National Training Programme Award for their conference on weight bias in healthcare in Israel. This event was a collaborative initiative between the Israeli Forum for the Prevention of Weight Bias, the Department of Nutrition Sciences at Ariel University, and the Department of Nutrition at Assuta Medical Centers. Organised by Dr Shiri Sherf-Dagan (RD, PhD), Prof. Lena Sagi-Dain (MD), and Shahar Kochavi (RD), the conference aimed to bridge research insights with practical interventions to address and reduce weight bias in clinical settings.
The ECPO Award for Best Social Media Engagement was won by PAS GRAS, a 5-year European-funded research and innovation project, which launched a campaign to mark World Obesity Day 2025 entitled ‘HEALTH UNLOCKED: From Small Steps to Real Changes’, designed to increase public awareness about environmental and behavioural determinants of obesity, aligned with the objectives of the PAS GRAS Campaign.
For their campaign, seven videos focused on key topics, important for obesity prevention, were developed and shared on key social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X. The PAS GRAS World Obesity Day 2025 social media campaign had the support of 28 social media accounts with a geographically diversified audience of more than 262,000 followers.
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Further information on the awards, with photos and videos of the award winners, as well as details and entry forms for the 2026 awards, can be found on the World Obesity Day Europe website: https://woday.eu/wod-europe-awards/
For information on ECPO, please see https://eurobesity.org/; and for details on EASO, please see https://easo.org/