Obesity: Children

(asked on 14th April 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many local authorities have experienced an increase in the rate of childhood obesity between 2012 and 2022.


Answered by
Maggie Throup Portrait
Maggie Throup
This question was answered on 22nd April 2022

In England the proportion of children living with obesity has increased since 2012. Data from the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) shows that for children aged four to five years old, obesity prevalence between 2011/2012 and 2020/2021, the latest year available, has increased from 9.5% to 14.4% and for children aged 10 to 11 years old, it has increased from 19.2% to 25.5%. Data from the Health Survey for England shows that obesity prevalence in children aged two to 15 years old increased from 13.7% in 2012 to 16.3% in 2019, the latest data available.

Local authority child obesity prevalence is collected via the NCMP. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, insufficient data for 2020/21 was collected to produce statistically robust results. Data from 2019/2020 was published for the majority of local authorities. When comparing the 2019/2020 estimate to 2011/2012 in children aged four to five years old, of 141 upper tier local authorities, 29 had obesity prevalence estimates which were statistically significantly higher and 13 were statistically significantly lower. In children aged 10 to 11 years old, 61 out of 144 local authorities had statistically significantly higher obesity prevalence estimates and 1 had a statistically significantly lower obesity prevalence.

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