CYP Now - Recipe for beating childhood obesity

Obesity is one of the biggest long-term health challenges. Professionals explore what needs to change and five councils outline how they are developing healthy food schemes for disadvantaged children.

Raising awareness of health education programmes can help break the link between deprivation and obesity. Picture: MNStudio/Adobe Stock

By Chris Thomas, senior research fellow, Institute for Public Policy Research

Childhood obesity remains one of the UK’s greatest public health challenges. One in 10 children in reception are classed as obese, rising to one in five by year six.

Children who are overweight or obese in childhood are more likely to be overweight or obese into adulthood.

Statistics show 70 per cent of adolescents living with obesity will be obese as an adult.

This means a greater risk of serious diseases like cancer, Type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease.

It has not always been this way. Childhood obesity is a fairly recent epidemic. One estimate from University College London and King’s College London researchers suggests childhood obesity rates were just over one per cent in 1984.

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