12th Meeting of the WHO European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative (COSI) - Meeting report (2019)

Bergen, Norway, 13-14 June 2019

The WHO European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative (or COSI) is a unique system that for over 10 years has measured trends in overweight and obesity among primary school aged children.

COSI involves taking standardized weight and height measurements from over 300 000 children across the WHO European Region every three years. This provides nationally representative data for participating countries, as well as a large Region-wide data set for analysis of the determinants of childhood overweight and obesity.

The 12th COSI meeting took place in Bergen, Norway, on 13-14 June 2019. Thirty-nine Member States were represented at the meeting, which:

• facilitated sharing of country-level experience with COSI
• reviewed the current status of childhood obesity in the Region and discussed forthcoming initiatives and future publications;
• reviewed the results from the fourth round of COSI data collection;
• reviewed and discussed country-level actions to halt childhood obesity; and
• discussed challenges, opportunities and considerations as COSI moves forward.