Fall in obese P1 children

The percentage of Lanarkshire school children who are obese or severely obese in primary one has fallen.

New government figures have revealed a slight year-on-year drop, following a survey of almost 6500 youngsters.

It means that 6.1 per cent of P1 kids have been classified as being either obese or severely obese – compared to 6.4 per cent last year.

And the statistics for Lanarkshire are below the Scottish average.

Across the country, 6.4 per cent of primary one pupils are either obese or severely obese, down from 6.6 per cent the previous year.

Jonathan Cavana, NHS Lanarkshire’s child healthy weight programme manager, said: “Encouraging children and young people to adopt more active lifestyles and healthier diets, continues to be a key priority for NHS Lanarkshire and our partners.

“It is also a central tenet of the Lanarkshire Healthy Weight Strategy which is a multi-agency approach to tackle the significant influences on weight within our communities.

“Among the strategy’s many actions is a commitment by all the partners to implement active play and promote healthy eating and working.

“The number of P1s who are obese or severely obese has been fluctuating for a number of years, which highlights that a great deal of work still requires to be done.

“To this end, we continue to have a package of support programmes which are based on a sustainable approach to the long-term prevention of unhealthy weight gain in childhood.

“These aim to support children and their families to make positive lifestyle choices related to food and exercise which will help them to achieve and maintain a healthy weight status now and into adulthood.

“This includes programmes which support maternal weight during and after pregnancy, as this supports positive child health outcomes, including healthy weight.

“We would encourage parents to take advantage of these programmes.”

The latest figures for 2016/17 were released by Information Services Division Scotland, a part of NHS Scotland which provides health service data used in planning.

And the Body Mass Index (BMI) of 6459 children of primary one age was looked at across the NHS Lanarkshire area, compared to 7000 the previous year.

The survey shows 0.5 per cent (up from 0.4 per cent) were underweight; 84.4 per cent per cent were at a healthy weight (down from 84.8 per cent); 9.0 per cent were overweight (up from 8.5 per cent); 3.6 per cent were obese (down from 4.0 per cent); and 2.5 per cent were severely obese (up from 2.4 per cent).