ADULT OBESITY

National Prevalence Findings

Findings from the latest (2006) Health Survey for England, demonstrated that nationally 38% of adults were overweight and 24% were obese. Although there was no significant difference in obesity prevalence between men and women, women were more likely to be morbidly obese (BMI>40) (3% women morbidly obese, 1% men morbidly obese. This data also showed that women from the lowest income quintile were more likely to be obese than their counterparts in the highest quintile.

Data from the Health Survey for England 2004, which contained an ethnic minority population boost) demonstrated that Bangladeshi and Chinese men had the lowest prevalence of obesity (6%), whilst Black Caribbean and Irish men had the highest prevalence of obesity (25%). For women, Black Aftrican, Black Caribbean and Pakistani population suffered the higher prevalence of obesity (38%, 32% and 28% respectively), whilst obesity prevalence was lowest in Chinese women (8%).

North East Prevalence Findings

Data from the 2006 Health Survey for England also demonstrates obesity prevalence at a regional level. In the North East, observed prevalence of obesity, was the second highest in the country for both men and women at 27% and 28% respectively. Due to the sample size of the Health Survey for England, it is not possible to analyse obesity prevalence at any level lower than regional.

NB: This information was provided by the Information Centre: Statistics on Obesity, Physical Activity and Diet: England: January 2008. This report and supporting data is available from: http://www.ic.nhs.uk/pubs/opadjan08/

CHILDHOOD OBESITY

The most current and accurate data for childhood obesity derives from the 2006/07 National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP). The national headline results bulletin (produced by the InformationCentre: http://www.ic.nhs.uk/webfiles/publications/ncmp/ncmp0607/NCMP%202006%2007.%20Bulletin%20Final.pdf/), show that nationally 10.7% of boys and 9.0% of girls from Reception year (ages 4-5yrs) were obese, whilst in year 6 (ages 10-11yrs) 19.0% and 15.8% of boys and girls respectively were obese. Data from this report also demonstrated that obesity prevalence was also higher in urban areas and had showed a strong positive relationship with deprivation. There was also some preliminary evidence to demonstrate some ethnic variation in obesity prevalence. However, is most important to consider the impact of, and potential bias created, by variation in uptake rate when interpreting this data. For example, there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that opt out is higher in larger children and for girls from year 6. A more detailed technical analysis of the 2006/07 NCMP has been carried out by the National Obesity Observatory, which will be available from:

Data from the 2006/07 headline results report demonstrated that the North East, alongside London and the West Midlands had a significantly higher prevalence of obesity. Data for the North East Primary Care Trust (PCT) is shown in Table 1:

For more information about the National Child Measurement Programme click here. Obesity is defined in this report using the population monitoring cut point of the 95th on the UK1990 growth reference chart.

For more information about overweight and obesity prevelance uptake rates for your locality click here