Childhood Obesity
The Government has made tackling childhood obesity a national priority, setting a Public Service Agreement target "to halt the year on year rise in obesity in children under 11 by 2010 in the context of a broader strategy to tackle obesity in the population as a whole".
As well as providing access to erpho information pertaining to childhood obesity, this page also contains links to national and international web resources - please click on the links below to navigate the page more easily:
| | Latest additions, news and events |
A link to the 2009 Annual Evidence Update - Obesity - Childhood obesity: surveillance and prevention from the National Library for Public Health has been added to the Resources and tools section on this page.
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| | The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published Guidance on the prevention, identification, assessment and management of overweight and obesity in adults and children in December 2006.
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| | The guidance makes a series of recommendations covering the NHS, local authorities and partners, early-years
settings, schools, workplaces, self-help, commercial and community settings. |
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| | These recommendations are practical and very much in line with our cross-Government programme on obesity. |
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| | The National Heart Forum and Faculty of Public health have published at obesity toolkit designed to
compliment the NICE guidance and help local multiagency teams to develop and implement strategies and
action plans to halt the of obesity prevalence. |
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| | The Department of Health Obesity homepage pulls together many useful resources; including
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| | Other resources
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Health Survey for England
The most commonly cited source of data on child obesity (as measured by BMI) is the Health Survey for England - a series of annual surveys about the health of people in England. Child obesity data is available at national and Government Office Region levels only. The 2002 survey focused specifically on the health of children and young people and gathered information on a larger than ususal sample of children and young people aged under 25 years.
The National Centre for Social Research drew on this and the 2001 survey to publish a report on Obesity among children aged under 11 years which describes trends in obesity prevalence over time and variations with various sociodemographic factors.
NCMP data Click here to see NCMP Data and analysis.
INpho 18: Obesity in childhood: surveillance and prevention
Published: May 06
Authors: Sian Evans with contributions from Indraneil Basu and Nandu Thalange
Key messages from Inpho 18:
- Halting the year on year rise in obesity in children aged under 11 years is a national priority and current Public Service Agreement target
- There is disagreement over the definition of child obesity. Using the UK national classification (85th, 95th cut offs) it is estimated that among children aged 2-15 years in England the proportion who were obese increased between 1995 and 2004, from 11 per cent in 1995 to 19 per cent in 2004 among boys, and from 12 per cent in 1995 to 18 per cent in 2004 among girls
- In the East of England, 14% of children aged 2-10 years were estimated to be obese in 2001/2
- Data at lower geographical levels are currently not available for all areas but are necessary to inform local planning and evaluate the success of local obesity prevention activities
- In 2006, the Department of health issued guidance on the collection of height and weight data (for Body Mass Index) for all primary school children in the first and last years of primary school (ages 4/5 and ages 10/11).
The Healthy Schools Programme aims to help all schools create an environment where young people and staff can reach their full potential. It provides an opportunity to review existing health promoting practice against set criteria, to identify areas for further development and set targets relevant to each individual school.
Change4Life is a society-wide movement that aims to prevent people from becoming overweight by encouraging them to eat better and move more. The Change4Life advertising campaign began in January 2009 to raise awareness and increase understanding of the issue of obesity.