Historical Overview

Obesity has been a growing problem since infectious diseases and nutrient deficiency diseases began to fade in the first half of the 20th century. The earliest discussions that we can identify, on the need for an organization on obesity took place in 1961 in Great Britain. However, it wasn't until 1966 that a steering committee, was formed. The "Obesity Association" planned its first meeting which was held in London in 1967. The second meeting of the Obesity Association was a Symposium on Obesity held in London in 1968 and published as a short monograph, edited by I. McLean-Baird and A.N. Howard. This is the first proceedings of a conference devoted exclusively to obesity that we have been able to identify.

In the early 1970's, the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health in the USA began the planning of a number of international conferences focusing on major diseases. The first of these conferences was on diabetes, and the second was on obesity. The first Fogarty Center International Conference on Obesity, was organized by George Bray and a Committee of six and was held in October, 1973 at NIH in Bethesda, MD. The proceedings were published as Obesity in Perspective in 1975. During the planning phase for the Fogarty Congress, Dr. Bray and Dr. Howard, one of the organizers of the Association for the Study of Obesity in Great Britian, met informally. An outgrowth of this meeting in 1972 was the recognition that there was a need for a continuing series of international congresses on obesity as well as a publication devoted to work in the field of obesity. This meeting was one stimulus for the series of congresses that began in London in 1974. The First International Congress on Obesity was held at the Royal College of Physicians in London in Oct 1974 with just over 500 people from 30 countries in attendance. The foresighted organizers were Trevor Silverstone and Alan Howard with Sir John Butterfield as president. The proceedings of this congress were published as Recent Advances in Obesity Research I with Alan Howard as editor.

Planning for The International Journal of Obesity began immediately after the 1st International Congress on Obesity. Enough papers had been received and peer-reviewed to begin quarterly publication of the Journal in 1977 with Drs. Bray and Howard as its founding co-editors. . In the same year the 2nd International Congress on Obesity and the 2nd Fogarty International Conference on Obesity were both held during October in Washington DC. The proceedings were again published as Recent Advances in Obesity Research II and Obesity in America with George Bray as editor. Thus, by the end of the 1970's a three yearly pattern of international congresses and an international journal had been established.

If the 1970s was a decade of foundation laying, the 1980s was a time of consolidation and construction, witnessing the birth of the International Association for the Study of Obesity. The 3rd International Congress on Obesity held in Rome in 1980 was first where "satellite" meetings were instituted and where the Willendorf Award was first given to Dr. Bray. It was also the year when the seeds for a new obesity association were germinating in the United States. The impetus came at the meeting of the Nutrition Committee of the American Heart Association when Dr. John Brunzell and Dr. George Bray were talking over coffee about the lack of an organized American group with a focus on obesity. Shortly afterwards American scientists interested in obesity were asked to participate and the North American Association for the Study of Obesity (NAASO) was born. In 1982, NAASO held its first meeting at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, on the "Classification of the Obesities" in collaboration with a symposium on childhood obesity supported by the National Institutes of Health. NAASO was incorporated and elected its first officers in l983 at the 4th International Congress on Obesity in New York. Discussions also took place on the desirability of organizing an international group of obesity scientists, later to be identified as the International Association for the Study of Obesity (IASO). The formative organizational committee meeting of the International Association for the Study obesity occurred at the International Union on Nutrition Sciences meeting in Brighton, England in 1985. This meeting outlined the principles and structure of the International Association for the Study of Obesity.

By 1986 when the 5th International Congress on Obesity met in Jerusalem, Israel, a structure was in place, a constitution and by-laws for IASO were adopted and the first officers elected (see Table below) As an International Association, membership included the associations for the study of obesity that had been formed in various countries, and provisions were made to elect new associations as they might be developed. In 1986 there were only a handful countries in the IASO General Council. A few individuals also joined from countries that did not have a national association. IASO's general council included two representatives of each country association, and the past-presidents/chairs of the international Congresses. Among the responsibilities of the General Council of IASO were enhancing of communications between the various associations, selection of sites for future congresses, oversight and editor selection for the International Journal of Obesity through a Publication Committee, and the selection of award winners for the IASO Awards. The Willendorf Award for outstanding contributions to clinical research in obesity was first made 1980 to Dr. George Bray. This was followed by establishment of the Andre Mayer award for young investigators in 1983, with Paul Trayhurn as the first awardee, and the Wertheimer Award for outstanding contributions to basic investigations in obesity in 1986 awarded first to Benjamin Shapiro, Ph.D..

As the decade ended, the birth and growth of IASO had been completed. The 1990's were the decade of maturation. The 6th International Congress was held in Kobe Japan in 1990. Over 1,000 obesity researchers and clinicians attended this and all of the meetings in the 1980's, and the IASO grew rapidly as national organizations continued to develop. By 1990 IASO members via the general council had established a structure for electing officers, and selecting sites for international congresses.

During the 1990's several important developments brought the IASO to a more prominent place on the international scene. In 1993 a new publication, "Obesity Research", was founded by NAASO, expanding the opportunities to publish obesity-related research. In 1998, the Executive Committee of IASO approved the addition of a new review journal entitled "Obesity Reviews",. further expanding the number of journals dedicated to obesity. The 7th International Congress on Obesity was held in Toronto, Canada in 1994, and the 8th International Congress on Obesity was held in Paris, France in 1998, with attendance that reached 3000. Membership in the General Council of IASO increased to 39 total countries during the decade.

The other significant new development was the formation by Philip James in 1995 of the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) that became a formal Subcommittee of IASO at the 1998 meeting in Paris. The IOTF formally constituted at the European Congress of Obesity in Barcelona. Its members represented leaders of the academic obesity community worldwide. Within 12 months the IOTF had prepared a report that became the basis for an expert consultation by the World Health Organization held in Geneva in June 1997.

Following the 1998 International Congress on Obesity, the IASO agreed to share an office in London with the International Obesity Task Force, which registered as a charity in 1999 to give it legal status to operate. IASO also appointed its first paid member of staff, Kate Baillie as Executive Director in 1999, who was giving the brief of managing the transition of the organization from voluntary to paid management and to professionalise its operations. Between the Paris Congress and the 9th International Congress on Obesity held in Sao Paulo, Brazil in August, 2002, the activities of the IASO and IOTF expanded further to form the basis for consultations to various governments and other agencies worldwide, with IASO and IOTF well represented in the WHO expert group which revised the original diet, nutrition and prevention of chronic diseases report of 1990.

In August 2002 following an extensive strategic review process, the decision was taken for IASO and IOTF to merge to become a single entity capable of confronting the challenges posed by the global obesity epidemic in the 21st century.

At the start of 2003, a major educational programme was launched: SCOPE (Specialist Certification of Obesity Professionals in Education). This initiative aims to recognise obesity specialists and enhance the quality of obesity education in Europe in the first instance but it is anticipated that the programme will eventually have global application.

In May 2003, further economies of scale and consolidation were generated when the secretariat took on the running of the European Association for the Study of Obesity. Staff in the scretariat now number 6 full time staff, 1 part time member and an external consultant. Further plans include the establishment of an in-house conference organising company to handle the project management of future ECO and ICO meetings from 2007, in line with the strategy for meetings management adopted by other similar international associations such as the International Diabetes Federation.

In 2004, it was agreed by the Executive Committee to create a trading subsidiary, Obesity International Trading Ltd (OIT). This was registered as a company in the UK in January 2005 and will organise conferences and meetings in the field of obesity and its related disciplines such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, nutrition and physical activity. After Sydney, IASO will organise its own international congresses and those of its European affiliate, EASO, through Obesity International Trading Ltd. The first international congress to be organised in-house will be the 15th European Congress on Obesity, taking place in Budapest in April 2007.

Another major development in publications in 2005 was the decision to establish a new journal – The International Journal of Pediatric Obesity.  This was launched in March 2006 under the editorship of Prof Louise Baur. In 2005 IASO spearheaded a new Global Alliance of five principal medical non-governmental organizations, initiating the first stage in developing the first ever global action programme  to address the issues surrounding the prevention of obesity, related chronic disease with a particular focus on the prevention of childhood obesity. This year will see the launch of IASO’s SCOPE online course, which aims to improve patient management skills by highlighting the range of issues which should be discussed during a patient consultation. It is entirely evidenced based and links are provided to the PubMed citation of each reference.

IASO currently has 52 associations (representing 56 countries) in membership and more are waiting to join. This is indeed a story of rapid growth and success in that the worldwide epidemic of obesity is now recognized and has become an international public and scientific concern.