New Delhi: To tackle rising obesity in India, ICMR has launched a nationwide exercise to find out what really works to reduce weight and associated health risks, at a time when almost one in four adults in the country is overweight or obese.The scale of the problem is becoming hard to ignore, with more than 25% of India’s adult population facing excess weight, leading to a rise in diabetes, hypertension and heart disease in both urban and rural areas.Despite years of research and a proliferation of diet plans, fitness regimes and awareness campaigns, there is still no clear, unified answer to which approach works best – or for whom. To bridge this gap, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has invited researchers to contribute data from all studies for a large-scale analysis.The aim is to compare the effectiveness of different strategies – from diet and physical activity to behavioral and multi-component interventions – and to understand how they perform in different population groups.The analysis will go beyond weight loss to track blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, reflecting growing concern that obesity is closely linked to a broader set of lifestyle diseases.The main focus will be to identify why the same intervention works for some people but not others, with the researchers examining variation across age, gender, income level and geography, including rural areas where undernutrition is persistent as well as obesity.Experts say the challenge is becoming more complex, with weight alone no longer a reliable indicator of health risk. Increasingly, metabolic disorders are appearing in normal weight individuals, while some people who are overweight may not have immediate complications.This initiative is expected to generate India-specific evidence to guide future treatment guidelines and public health strategies, as policymakers grapple with the rapidly growing health challenge across age groups and regions.