• NCMP 2006/07 report
• NCMP 2006/07 pre release access list.

Summary

This report summarises the key findings from the Government's National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP).

• the report provides high-level analysis of the prevalence of obese and overweight children, in reception (aged 4 to 5 years) and year 6 (aged 10 to 11 years), measured in the school year 2006/07
• in total, 876,416 valid measurements were received for children, in England, in reception and year 6 approximately 80 per cent of those eligible
• this represents an increased participation rate of 32 percentage points from last year's programme, when the corresponding rate was 48 per cent
• this report outlines the prevalence of obese and overweight children by year and sex in England for 2006/07, as summarised in table 1
• obesity prevalence is significantly higher than the national average in the North East, West Midlands and London SHAs for both school years
• obesity prevalence is significantly below the national average in the South East Coast, South Central, South West and East of England SHAs for children in both school years, as well as for year 6 children in the East Midlands.
• SHA obesity prevalence is higher in urban areas than in rural areas
• there is a strong positive relationship between deprivation and obesity prevalence for children in reception and Year 6
  
• when interpreting the results, it is important to consider the possible effects of participation rate on prevalence rates
• Since the participation rate was less than 100 per cent, data will be missing for certain children. If these missing data were atypical, results could be biased For example, if children with higher BMI scores opted out of being measured, overweight and obese prevalence would be underestimated
• analysis later in the report shows that year 6 prevalence of obese and overweight may be slightly underestimated but that results for reception children are likely to be more robust.

Key facts

• in reception, almost one in four of the children measured was either overweight or obese
• in year 6, this rate was nearly one in three
• the prevalence of obesity is significantly higher in boys than in girls
• in both age groups the prevalence of obesity is significantly higher in year 6 than in reception
• the percentage of children who are overweight is only slightly higher in year 6 than in reception
• the percentage of children who are overweight is similar for boys and girls in year 6 - in reception, this rate is slightly higher for boys than for girls.