More than a quarter of Leicester’s 10 and 11-year-olds are officially obese, new figures have shown. The data, which is based on youngsters in Year 6 at school, show that in the city the percentage of those with a BMI of more than 30 is 25.5 per cent.
Obesity – distinct from being overweight – means being so heavy for your height that it can cause health problems. Leicester’s rate is behind both Nottingham and Mansfield, which have rates over 28 per cent, but above the national average of 22.1 per cent.
Leicestershire, however, has fewer obese children, with 18.7 per cent of Year 6 youngsters classed as obese. The national record is Sandwell in Birmingham, where 31 per cent of children in that age group are obese.
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The figures, from the 2023/2024 school year, come as the Government plans a new campaign against childhood obesity with a pre-watershed ban on junk food advertising. The ban will see ads for food items such as crisps, fizzy drinks, sugary cereals and even porridge banned from screens until after 9pm.
The Government believes the ban will prevent an estimated 20,000 cases of childhood obesity across the UK. The national average of 22.1 per cent of children being obese, is up from 18.7 per cent in 2010, which is the earliest year figures were published.
The map below shows where the childhood obesity hotspots around the country are:
The city is the only area of Leicestershire to be above the national average. After Leicester, Oadby and Wigston has the next highest childhood obesity rate at 21.7 per cent, followed by North West Leicestershire at 20.4 per cent.
Year 6 pupils attending school in Harborough district had the lowest rates of obesity in Leicestershire at just 16 per cent, followed by Hinckley and Bosworth at 17.7 per cent and Charnwood at 18.4 per cent.
Leicester: 25.5%
Oadby and Wigston: 21.7%
North West Leicestershire: 20.4%
Melton: 19.2%
Blaby: 19.1%
Charnwood: 18.4%
Hinckley and Bosworth: 17.7%
Harborough: 16.0%
Health Secretary Wes Streeting believed introducing the junk food ad ban was necessary. He said: “Obesity robs our kids of the best possible start in life, sets them up for a lifetime of health problems, and costs the NHS billions. This government is taking action now to end the targeting of junk food ads at kids, across both TV and online.
“This is the first step to deliver a major shift in the focus of healthcare from sickness to prevention, and towards meeting our government’s ambition to give every child a healthy, happy start to life.”
While Sandwell in Birmingham has the highest rate of childhood obesity, other hotspots around the country include Knowsley in Merseyside and Wolverhampton, which both had rates above 30 per cent.
Nottingham came fifth in the figures for England and Wales, with a rate of 28.4 per cent. In Mansfield the rate was 28.2 per cent, in Derby it was 24.3, Coventry 26.1 and in Lincoln 25.4 per cent.