The cost of inaction on childhood obesity in Indonesia

Highlights

Childhood obesity is rising rapidly in Indonesia, compounding longstanding challenges of stunting, wasting, and micronutrient deficiencies. Rapid shifts in food and physical environments that promote unhealthy diets and offer limited opportunities for active lifestyles are key drivers of this trend. From a nutritional perspective, Indonesian children increasingly consume unhealthy diets characterised by the overconsumption of nutritionally poor ultra-processed foods (UPFs).

Despite the scale of the problem, several evidence-based prevention policies are either not effectively implemented or not yet in place. These include taxation of products high in sugar, salt, and fat, including sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), interpretative front-of-pack nutrition labelling (FOPNL),2 and restrictions on the marketing of unhealthy foods. To strengthen the evidence base and support policy development, UNICEF and the University of Lausanne supported the Ministry of Health in conducting Indonesia’s first cost-of-inaction study on childhood obesity. This study quantifies the lifetime economic costs of childhood overweight and obesity in Indonesia and estimates the potential savings from three evidence-based policy interventions: SSB taxation, interpretative FOPNL, and restrictions on the marketing of unhealthy foods to children.