Plus-sized clothing on sale for children as young as three

PLUS-SIZE clothes are on sale on Britain’s high streets for children as young as three, in what health campaigners say is a sign that childhood obesity has moved beyond epidemic proportions.

The comments come as it emerged that Next, the high street retailer, was selling a range of “plus fit” clothing for children aged between three and 16.

Included in the range for boys and girls are a number of pairs of jeans and tracksuit bottoms designed for children with larger-than-average waists.

The retailer’s “age 3 plus fit” trousers have a waistband which is 2in (5cm) larger than a standard “age 3” waistband, at 23in (58cm) compared with 21in (53cm). “Age 10 plus fit” trousers have a waistband of 27in (69cm), compared with a 25in (64cm) measure on standard “age 10” trousers.

Around a third of children leave primary school overweight or obese, with overeating the main cause, according to Duncan Selbie, chief executive at Public Health England.

Despite this, Next is thought to be the only major clothing store in Britain to be selling casualwear garments specifically designed to fit children with larger waists.

Tam Fry, chief executive of the National Obesity Forum, said: “Next is simply catering for the market and the size of the existing market is getting bigger, so they will be putting up their sizes. They may get stick for it, but they are simply saying we have to clothe our customers.

“They are responding to current state of affairs. It has been in a bad state for a long time but this just shows it has now gone beyond the point of a crisis.”

Caroline Taylor, founder of specialist plus-size retailer More For Kids, said modern lifestyles were to blame. She said: “Children are large for many reasons but a lot of it is down to their modern lifestyles. They are bound to their computers, their mums are working and they’re eating sugary foods.”

A Next spokesman said: “Our different ‘fits’ cater for children with different size waist and hips, taking into account that children come in all different shapes and sizes.”

But Elizabeth Fox, chief executive at the National Children’s Wear Association, said: “Children simply aren’t as fit as they used to be, they are larger and heavier and this is a sad reflection on society.”