Italy unveils plans for €4.2 million fund to target obesity

Italy could soon have a multi-million euro public fund to combat obesity, in what advocates say is a small but meaningful step to address a health condition that affects roughly 6 million Italians.

The country’s parliament appeared poised to approve its 2025 budget law on Friday, including €4.2 million in dedicated funding for obesity-related efforts that would be managed by the health ministry and allocated over the next three years.

Italy’s obesity rate is 11.4 per cent, below the European Union average of 16 per cent, but high rates of physical inactivity, especially among teenagers, and rising obesity rates among children suggests that it could become a major public health issue in the future, according to a 2023 report from the European Commission.

Even so, obesity has often been neglected in the health sector, according to Dr Paolo Sbraccia, chief of the internal medicine unit and obesity center at the University of Rome Tor Vergata hospital.

In 2019, the Italian parliament approved a motion to recognise obesity as a chronic disease and asked the government to implement programmes to prevent and manage it.

Obesity was added to the country’s chronic disease plan – which aims to improve quality and coordination of medical care for chronic health issues – this summer.

With that backdrop, the new public fund is a “real breakthrough” that will pave the way for more resources to address obesity going forward, Sbraccia told Euronews Health.

However, not all experts were pleased with the €4.2 million fund.

‘A symbolic gesture’

“It’s a drop in the ocean” relative to what’s needed, Francesco Paolucci, a health economics and policy professor at the University of Bologna and the University of Newcastle in Australia, told Euronews Health.

“I honestly don’t believe it is anything more than a symbolic gesture, saying that something needs to be done in those areas,” he added.

Roberto Pella, a lawmaker from the centre-right Forza Italia and head of the parliamentary intergroup on obesity, diabetes, and chronic diseases, introduced one of the budget amendments to create the fund.

In a statement, Pella said that more policies are in the works to combat obesity in Italy, aiming to guarantee “full access to nutritional, pharmaceutical, and surgical care and treatments”.

He said legislation could pass as soon as early 2025.

Questions remain about whether the new fund could be used to cover blockbuster medicines like Ozempic, which is available in Italy for some patients with type 2 diabetes. 

Italian regulators also approved the weight loss drug Wegovy this year, but said it cannot be reimbursed by the health service.

Other European countries, including the United Kingdom and France, have also been grappling with how and whether to pay for these medicines, given the high number of would-be patients and the potential impact on their budgets.

In Italy, spending on semaglutide – the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy which helps to suppress people’s appetites – surged by 52.3 per cent in 2023, while consumption rose by 75.9 per cent, according to the national drug regulator.

Expense of treating obesity

Obesity is an expensive condition as well. A 2024 study found that in Italy, lifetime health spending for the most obese patients reached nearly €44,000, compared with about €28,000 for those in a healthy weight range.

Sbraccia said that the new fund does not come with enough money to pay for anti-obesity drugs. 

He believes the health system should cover these medicines only for patients with the greatest need, for example, those with severe obesity or patients at risk of serious health complications as a result of obesity.

“There is no money for all [patients], given that the prevalence of obesity and overweight is so huge,” Sbraccia said.

Meanwhile, Paolucci said the Italian health sector needs more comprehensive reform to adequately address the country’s health issues, including obesity. For example, if people don’t have access to primary care to help them manage their health conditions, they often wind up in the emergency room.

“Obesity is a problem in itself, but it’s also a risk factor,” Paolucci said. 

“If we don’t tackle it, like many other chronic diseases, we’ll see cases popping up in our hospital system, which is really struggling all over the country”.