Pasifika children top index

Auckland: Pacific Island and Kiwi children are among the fattest and least healthy in the world, a new study has found.

The study, published in The Lancet yesterday, found Pacific Island children between the ages of 5 and 19 had the highest body mass index (BMI) in the world in 2019, with New Zealand children not far behind.

It compared 65 million schoolaged children from 200 countries and territories over the 34 years to 2019.

The most unhealthy growth trends — too little height gain and/or excess weight gains — were seen in several countries including New Zealand, the United States, Malaysia, Mexico and subSaharan Africa.

This study follows hard on the heels of the Unicef’s annual Innocenti report card, which named New Zealand adolescents as some of the most overweight in the OECD. — The New Zealand Herald