Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve the quality of BMI tests used to test obesity in children.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends that body mass index (BMI) is used routinely by healthcare professionals to assess obesity in adults and children. This is outlined in the NICE guidance ‘Obesity: the prevention, identification, assessment and management of overweight and obesity in adults and children’ found at the following link:

http://guidance.nice.org.uk/CG43

NICE routinely reviews its guidance to make sure that it reflects significant new evidence and changes in clinical practice, which includes reviewing advice from the World Health Organization.

There is currently no proposal to change the collection of BMI centile data as part of the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP), however great care is taken to ensure accuracy at the point of measurement and in the collection of the data. Public Health England publishes operational guidance to advise local NCMP commissioners and providers on how to correctly undertake the measurements and submit the data.