Childhood autonomy blamed for obesity rise

AUTONOMY in older children is being blamed for a dramatic rise in levels of childhood obesity.

According to figures obtained by the Irish Daily Mail, Irish children are twice as likely to be hospitalised for obesity between the ages of ten and 14 as at any other age.

Last year, 199 children under the age of 17 were discharged from hospital after a diagnosis of obesity and almost half of those were aged between ten and 14.

According to Deirdre Doyle, who runs The Cool Food School, a programme which is designed to educate children and parents about healthy eating: ‘Younger children have packed and reasonably healthy lunches at school, but when they are older, they can buy their own stuff and they tend to buy junk.’

A total of 87 children in that age band were diagnosed with obesity last year and were hospitalised.

While there were 31 children with obesity up to the age of four, and 37 aged between five and nine, the number spiked at 87 in the ten-to14 age group.

Ms Doyle said: ‘Some statistics will say exercise and activity in children dips at the age of ten. They are not as active as they were.

‘The use of technology is another massive issue and they also have more control over what they eat at that age.’

Some students who face making or buying their own lunches for the first time do not understand how to eat healthily, she added.

And the solution, according to Ms Doyle, is more education surrounding the issue of healthy eating so that children will find it easier to make better choices.

‘Food education is key for kids,’ she said.

There are currently 16,338 threeyear-olds who are overweight or obese, according to an Oireachtas report from the Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs published earlier this year.

The report read: ‘At age three years, 24% of children were overweight or obese which, if extrapolated to the full population, indicates that 16,338 three-yearolds were overweight or obese.’

The Department of Health did not respond to a request for comment from the Mail.

‘They tend to buy junk’