Childhood obesity in the North East

Childhood obesity is a growing public health concern. Latest figures from the Health Survey from England[1] (using the UK90 population monitoring cut points for overweight and obesity), demonstrate a national rise in obesity prevalence for children aged 2-15 years, from 10.9% in 1995 to 18.0% in 2005 among boys, and from 12.0% to 18.1% in girls, over the same period[1]. Regional data from 2002-2004 for children aged 2-15 years showed a prevalence of 19.5% in the North East, the third highest nationally[1]. Tackling childhood obesity is a Government priority, part of which involved establishing the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP)[2,3] (formerly the National Childhood Obesity Dataset[4] â" NCOD). The NCMP, established in 2005, aims to annually weigh and measure all children from Reception (R) (ages 4-5) and Year 6 (ages 10-11), to inform local planning and service delivery; and gather population-level surveillance data to analyse trends in growth patterns and obesity[3]. The findings from the first year of the programme, revealed a number of practical difficulties which significantly impacted upon data quality and thus eliminated the possibility of more in depth analysis5. However the North East Strategic Health Authority (SHA) gained the highest provisional response rates nationally[5]. This report provides an overview of provisional PCT level obesity prevalence and response rates from 2005/06.

• Obesity