Nearly one in five final year primary school children is obese, says a report from The NHS Information Centre out today.

Figures for pupils in Year 6 of primary school – the final year - show the percentage classified as ‘obese' was 18.7 per cent in 2009/10 - nearly double that of pupils in Reception year, of whom 9.8 per cent were classified as ‘obese'.

The NCMP measures the height and weight of children in Reception class (four to five-year-olds) and Year 6 (aged ten to 11 years) in primary schools in England to establish the prevalence of pupils who are ‘underweight', ‘healthy weight', ‘overweight' and ‘obese'.

Participation in the programme has increased year on year since it was first introduced in 2005 and now more than a million pupils take part. This represents 91 per cent of eligible pupils.

The study also showed:

• More than one in three children in Year 6 were either overweight or obese – 33.4 per cent.
• Among Reception Year children, just under one in four were either overweight or obese – 23.1 per cent.
• Prevalence of obesity was higher in boys than in girls in both age groups – by 1.3 percentage points in Reception Year (10.5 per cent compared to 9.2 per cent) and by 3.4 percentage points in Year 6 (20.4 per cent compared to 17.0 per cent).
• Among Reception Year children, the prevalence of overweight pupils (13.3 per cent) was greater than the prevalence of those who were classified as obese (9.8 per cent). In Year 6, the opposite was true with prevalence of overweight children (14.6 per cent) being lower than that of obese children (18.7 per cent).
• Obesity prevalence is significantly higher in urban areas than in non-urban areas for both age groups.
• Obesity prevalence varied among Strategic Health Authorities (SHA) ranging from 8.4 per cent in South East Coast SHA to 11.6 per cent in London SHA for Reception children, and from 16.1 per cent in South West SHA to 21.8 per cent in London SHA for Year 6.
• Areas with high obesity prevalence among Reception Year pupils tended also to have high obesity prevalence among Year 6 pupils.

Chief Executive of The NHS Information Centre Tim Straughan said: “This is the fifth year of the programme and participation in the study continues to increase with more than a million children taking part.

“The study suggests that weight problems continue to be far worse for older children than for younger children, with one in three Year 6 pupils being either overweight or obese and nearly one in five obese.

"These statistics suggest that more needs to be done at a younger age to combat obesity within primary education and positively encourage healthy eating and participation in physical activity, to reduce future health implications for these children.”

The full report is at www.ic.nhs.uk/ncmp

ENDS

Notes to editors

1. The NHS Information Centre for health and social care (The NHS IC) is England's authoritative, central, independent source of health and social care information. It works with a wide range of health and social care providers nationwide to provide the facts and figures that help the NHS and social services run effectively. Its role is to collect data, analyse it and convert it into useful information which helps providers improve their services and supports academics, researcher, regulators and policymakers in their work. The NHS IC also produces a wide range of statistical publications each year across a number of areas including: primary care, health and lifestyles, screening, hospital care, population and geography, social care and workforce and pay statistics.

2. Established in 2005, the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) weighs and measures children in Reception (typically aged four and five years old) and Year 6 (aged ten and 11 years). The findings are used to inform local planning and delivery of services for children and gather population-level surveillance data to allow analysis of trends in weight. The programme also seeks to engage with parents about the importance of healthy weight in children, since their children's results are shared with them

3. Obesity is a priority for the Government. The recent White Paper: Healthy Lives, Healthy People sets out the Government's commitment to continue to run NCMP, providing local areas with information about levels of overweight and obesity in children to inform planning and commissioning of local services. Central collation and analysis of the NCMP data has been coordinated by The NHS Information Centre since 2006/07. Data are supplied locally by primary care trusts with the support and cooperation of schools.

4. When making year-on-year comparisons of Year 6 NCMP data, it is important to note the effect of participation rates on obesity prevalence estimates found to exist in Year 6 NCMP data gathered in each year from 2006/07 to 2008/09 discussed in Annex 6 of the report (note: Neither Year R data, nor any of the other Year 6 prevalence estimates were shown to be affected). In the 2007/08 report, detailed statistical analysis led to an estimate that, for each 10 percentage point increase in the Year 6 participation rate, the corresponding obesity prevalence estimate increased, on average, by 0.6 percentage points. This was addressed by the inclusion on an extended upper confidence interval on Year 6 obesity prevalence estimates from 2006/07 to 2008/09. This association was not found in 2009/10 and therefore no adjustments have been made to the Year 6 obesity confidence intervals.

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