A concerning rise in overweight and obesity in P1 children

Today Public Health Scotland published the most recent data from the Primary 1 health reviews covering the school year 2020/21.   

Over the last year there has been a significant increase in the overall proportion of Primary 1 children who are at risk of overweight or obesity, having been stable for a number of years prior.  

The number of Primary 1 children with a healthy weight has dropped from 76% to 70 % between 2019/20 and 2020/21.  Whilst the number of children at risk of overweight has gone up, it is the rates of those at risk of obesity that have increased the most from 10% in 2019/20 to 15.5% in the latest data. 

Especially concerning is the growing inequalities issue for children's weight. The latest data shows that 36% of children from the most deprived areas are at risk of overweight or obesity, an increase of 8% from last year. Meanwhile, 21% of children from the least deprived areas are at risk, showing a lower increase of 4% from the previous year.  

Considering obesity specifically, children from the most deprived backgrounds were more than twice as likely to be at risk of obesity compared to those from the least deprived (21% vs 8%). 

Those children who were in Primary 1 in 2020/21 have lived nearly a quarter of their lives in pandemic control measures so there is no doubt that this will be having an impact on their weight. 

Lorraine Tulloch, Programme Lead of Obesity Action Scotland said: 
“This is worrying news.  Ensuring all our children are a healthy weight is important to protect their current and future health.  The ambition of the Scottish Government is to halve childhood obesity by 2030 but we appear to be heading in completely the wrong direction.  We need every child in Scotland to have access to healthy, affordable food.  We need their childhood to be free from the marketing, promotion and advertising of junk food.  This would give them all a chance to achieve a healthy weight”