Obese at four, children who are overfed by their parents
‘Odds stacked against them’
PARENTS are overfeeding their children and consigning them to a lifetime of obesity, the country’s chief nutritionist has warned.
Official statistics revealed nearly a quarter of children are overweight or obese by the time they start school.
Dr Alison Tedstone, chief nutritionist at Public Health England, said: ‘The evidence shows that children are being fed more than they require.
‘They are having a few more calories every day than they need. It builds up over time. Children are living in households with parents who have an obesity problem themselves, so there are ingrained obesity habits.
‘People tend to underestimate the amount of calories they are eating, and I suspect they underestimate how much their children are eating as well.’
The statistics, gathered by the National Child Measurement Programme at schools across England, found 22.6 per cent aged four or five were overweight in 2016/17.
Of these, 9.6 per cent were classed as obese – at least 20 per cent heavier than they should be. These figures are largely unchanged in ten years but a record number of children are overweight or obese by 11.
Last year 34.2 per cent of those leaving primary school were overweight, up from 31.6 per cent a decade ago.
Of these, 20 per cent were obese in 2016/17, up from 17.5 per cent in 2006/7.
Dr Tedstone said the problems are already in place when children start school, but then continue to grow. ‘If you are an obese child you are very likely to be become an obese adult,’ she said.
Overweight children face bullying in school, poor self-esteem and tooth decay. As adults, they are at risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer. ‘ It’s a shocking position to be in as a nation. We need sustained actions to tackle poor diets and excess calorie intakes,’ she said. Parents tend to underestimate how much their children are eating – but Dr Tedstone also blamed the junk food industry.
‘We have ubiquitous offers of food on our high streets,’ she said. ‘There is a lot of pressure against having a healthy diet.’
Other experts warned of a crisis in children’s health and said the statistics hide far greater problems in poor areas – such as Wolverhampton, or the boroughs of Brent and Dagenham in London – where up to 44 per cent of children leave school overweight or obese.
Caroline Cerny, of the Obesity Health Alliance, said: ‘It’s the children from the most deprived backgrounds who have the odds stacked against them. They are more than twice as likely to be affected by obesity.’
Theresa May published a childhood obesity strategy last year that ‘challenged’ the food industry to slash sugar by 20 per cent by 2020.
Critics said the plan was ‘watered-down’ and did nothing to force companies to act.
But public health minister Steve Brine said: ‘ We are delivering the most ambitious childhood obesity plan in the world, taxing sugary drinks, helping children to exercise more, funding research to better understand the problem and cutting sugar and calories in food before it hits shelves and plates.’