Portugal already has much of the policy framework needed to tackle obesity – but people living with the disease are still waiting to see it translated into actual care, a coalition of health and patient organisations has warned.
The Recalibrar a Balança platform took its concerns to Parliament’s Health Committee on Wednesday, October 21, presenting MPs with three requests aimed at speeding up Portugal’s response to obesity.
At the top of the list is a call for the 2027 State Budget to provide the resources needed to put Portugal’s new obesity strategy into practice, particularly by making multidisciplinary obesity teams operational across the country’s local health units (ULS).
The platform also wants Parliament to follow progress towards a special public-access and reimbursement regime for obesity medicines, while proposing an annual parliamentary hearing to assess whether national obesity policy is actually delivering results.
“Portugal has already taken important steps by recognising obesity as a chronic disease and creating instruments to organise the health system’s response,” said José Silva Nunes, president of the Portuguese Society for the Study of Obesity (SPEO) and spokesperson for the platform.
“The challenge now is to ensure that this framework effectively translates into an impact on people’s lives: in diagnosis, multidisciplinary monitoring and access to treatment.”
Portugal recognised obesity as a chronic disease more than two decades ago, while a government order published in November 2025 provided for the creation of a National Programme for the Prevention and Management of Obesity and an integrated care pathway for people living with the disease.
But Recalibrar a Balança argues that the problem is no longer the absence of plans or policies – it is putting them into practice.
According to the platform, the new model has yet to produce meaningful changes for patients, with continued difficulties accessing specialist appointments, bariatric surgery and pharmacological treatment.
It wants the 2027 State Budget to include concrete targets and resources for multidisciplinary obesity teams, as well as mechanisms ensuring that access to treatment does not depend on where someone lives or whether they can afford private care.
According to figures cited by the platform, around 68% of Portuguese adults are overweight – referred to in the statement as “pre-obesity” – or living with obesity, with obesity alone affecting around 28%.
It estimates that obesity accounts for around 13% of Portugal’s disease burden.
€1.15 billion in direct SNS costs
The platform also points to the financial impact on the health service.
It says direct costs to the SNS associated with obesity amount to around €1.15 billion but argues that around 99% of this spending goes towards treating complications associated with the disease, rather than obesity itself.
Absenteeism linked to obesity is estimated to cost another €238 million per year, while the platform says the overall economic cost could rise to the equivalent of 2.13% of GDP by 2030.
For the organisations involved, these figures strengthen the case for investing earlier in prevention, diagnosis and treatment rather than concentrating spending on illnesses and complications that develop later.
Questions over obesity medicines
Access to medication is another major focus of the platform’s agenda.
A November 2025 government order required medicines regulator Infarmed to analyse the potential impact of reimbursing obesity medicines, and Infarmed published that study in December of that year.
Recalibrar a Balança says the necessary technical work has therefore been carried out and is questioning why the promised special framework governing public access, assessment and reimbursement of obesity medicines has still not been published.
The platform is not calling for unrestricted access to medication, but for treatment to be made available according to clinical and eligibility criteria defined by health authorities, it says.
Its third proposal is for Parliament’s Health Committee to hold an annual hearing dedicated to obesity policy, allowing MPs to track targets, access to care and patient outcomes rather than allowing the issue to disappear from the political agenda once legislation or strategies have been announced.
For Recalibrar a Balança, the broader aim is to shift Portugal towards a continuing, integrated response encompassing prevention, healthier environments, equitable access to treatment, better organisation of healthcare and monitoring of results, while also tackling the stigma surrounding obesity.