Obesity rates for English pupils fall for first time since 2006

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/11/obesity-rates-england-primary-schoolchildren-fall

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The proportion of children in England in their final year of primary school who are overweight or obese has fallen for the first time since official figures began to be recorded six years ago.

The annual National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) showed that 33.3% of pupils in year 6 (aged 10-11) were overweight or obese in 2012-13, compared with 33.9% the previous year. The percentage is still higher than in 2006-07 (31.6%).

The Health and Social Care Information Centre, which published the figures, said further years' data would be required to see if it heralded the start of a decline but Public Health England (PHE), the organisation charged by the government with helping to reduce obesity, described them as "really promising".

Campaigners expressed scepticism about the statistics. Tam Fry, from the National Obesity Forum, welcomed the news but warned the government "not to get too cocky" and said the figures did not tell the full story.

"It's going to take another two years of similar figures before you can be sure the tide has turned," he said. "We were told in 2000 that obesity had levelled off and that died a quick death. These are simple statistics. What they hide is that pupils who are already obese are getting fatter and they're getting fatter earlier."

He put any improvement down to "general improvement in schools in terms of healthy eating and children understanding what is good food and what is not good food".

Dr Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, said the improvements were "marginal" and the overall figures were still unacceptable. "If the government are serious about tackling this problem, they need to engage in cost-effective problem interventions which include a sugary drink tax, heavily curtailing junk food availability in schools and hospitals, and banning junk food advertising for children," he said.

The proportion of obese children in year 6 also fell slightly in 2012-13, to 18.9% from 19.2%, but remained higher than in 2006-07 (17.5%). Over the same period the proportion of obese children in reception year (aged four to five) fell to 9.3% from 9.5% and was lower than six years ago (9.9%). The proportion of children in reception year who are overweight or obese fell to 22.2%, compared with 22.6% the previous year and 22.9% in 2006-07.

Professor Kevin Fenton, national director for health and wellbeing at PHE, said: "This levelling off in obesity levels at both these age groups is really promising. We will be monitoring these trends very closely to see if this can be maintained over future years and have an impact on overall obesity levels in the population."

The public health minister Jane Ellison said: "Whilst it is welcome news that obesity prevalence has dropped amongst children, we must not be complacent as there is still much to do."

PHE said there was a wide gap in obesity rates between the most deprived and the least deprived children, with rates in the most deprived areas double those of the least deprived (12.1% against 6.4% for four- to five-year-olds, and 24.2% compared with 13% for 10/11-year-olds).

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