Latest figures from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) show that 866 people aged under 25 received treatment from paediatric diabetes units in 2019/20, an increase of 9.6 per cent on the previous year and an increase of 59 per cent compared with 2014/15.
Some 84.2 per cent of the children and young people treated for type 2 diabetes were registered as obese over the last four years, according the RCPCH.
Local authorities, led by the Local Government Association (LGA), are calling for the forthcoming Spending Review to provide greater investment in community sports and leisure facilities, along with adequate long-term funding for local authority weight management services and healthy schools initiatives via the public health grant.
More must be done to target marginalised groups, including disadvantaged communities and ethnic minorities who are disproportionately affected by the condition, councils have said.
David Fothergill, chairman of the LGA’s community wellbeing board, said: “Childhood obesity is one of the biggest public health challenges we face, which has been made all the more urgent by Covid-19 and the extra risk to those who are overweight and obese.
“It is extremely worrying that we are seeing more young people develop type 2 diabetes, a preventable condition which is rare in children and more typically develops in adults over the age of 40.
“These figures are yet another sobering reminder that there is much more to do to reach the government’s bold ambition of halving the number of children with obesity by the end of the decade.”
