Junior schools where most children are overweight by age 11

MOST children are now overweight by the time they leave primary school in some parts of England, official figures show.

The data highlights a string of hotspots where it has become the norm for an 11year-old to be carrying excess pounds.

Government agency Public Health England (PHE) has discovered nine areas – including in London and towns from Devon to Derbyshire – where at least half of this year group have high Body Mass Index (BMI) readings.

Meanwhile, in one part of Redcar, North Yorkshire, more than a quarter of children are obese by the time they start school.

The alarming figures will add to the pressure on ministers to introduce a ‘sugar tax’ and curbs on junk food marketing aimed at pre-teens, as recommended by a recent PHE report and advocated by chef Jamie Oliver. Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said: ‘By the age of 11, children tend to have made up their minds about what their lifestyle will be. The consequence of being obese so young is to enter a whole new world of illness and disease where things like diabetes, cardiovascular problems and even gout are commonplace.’

The National Child Measurement Programme takes BMI readings annually from samples of youngsters in two age groups – ages four to five and ages ten to 11.

PHE amalgamates the results over three-year periods to ensure the picture is reliable and breaks them down to council ward level. Nationally, around one in three of the older group of children examined between 2011/12 and 2013/14 was either overweight or obese. But top of the league table was the Town and Pier area of Dover in Kent, where the rate was 56.4 per cent. Close behind was Ilkeston Central in Derbyshire at 54.3 per cent; Netherhall, in Maryport, Cumbria, at 52.3 per cent, and Grange ward in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, at 51.7 per cent. Meanwhile, East Walworth, at 51.6 per cent, and Rotherhithe, at 50.7 per cent – both parts of Southwark in London – were identified as other hotspots. Also on the list were North Lynn in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, at 50.3 per cent; Bishop’s Nympton in Devon at 50 per cent, and Hackney Wick in East London at 50 per cent.

A BMI reading for adults can be worked out by dividing weight in kilograms by height in metres. The answer is then divided by the person’s height.

But for children, the second calculation is not carried out and instead the answer is compared with those of other youngsters of the same age and sex to calculate a ‘centile’ – or position relative to others on a scale of one to 100.

Between 91 and 97 is classed as overweight, while any child who scores 98 and above is obese.