Health experts have urged the Government to tackle the “injustice” of childhood obesity as figures showed nearly one in four London children in primary school are now obese.
NHS Digital figures showed a significant variation in obesity rates between richer and poorer areas of the capital. Nearly a third of year 6 pupils in Barking and Dagenham were obese (33.2 per cent) in 2022 compared with 12.8 per cent in Richmond upon Thames.
A total of 25.8 per cent of London children were obese in the age group – a rise of 2.2 per cent on the figure reported five years before.
The figures come weeks after the Government’s obesity tsar, Henry Dimbleby, resigned after claiming that ministers’ strategy on tackling obesity “made no sense”. A delay on “buy one get one free” offers has been paused until October this year while plans to restrict junk food advertising has also been paused.
Professor Christina Vogel, Deputy Director Centre for Food Policy at City University, told the Standard that children living in more deprived areas of the capital were more likely to gain weight due to “repeated exposure to unhealthy contexts, such as bombardment of takeaways, advertising and promotions for cheap, unhealthy foods”.
“Children growing up in more affluent contexts do not experience the same levels of exposure. Inequalities in rates of obesity among primary school aged children have continued to widen over the past decade and this unfair and unjust.”
Health experts have warned that children will be more susceptible to cancer and infectious diseases without action to improve nutrition and combat hunger.
Statistics published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that food inflation was 18.2 per cent in February, with prices rising at the fastest rate in 45 years.
Rebecca O’Connell, Professor of Food, Families and Society at the University of Hertfordshire, said that food inflation was likely to have the most severe impact on the poorest families.
“It is often lower cost foods that go up in price more than luxury foods. Most people growing up in poverty are in a family where one parent is working and lower paid workers are often juggling unpredictable incomes and hours.
“The stress that goes into just providing a meal means that prioritising food isn’t really possible in a way that people who don’t have those constraints might find it hard to imagine.”
She called on ministers to urgently rethink proposals to restrict junk food advertising to bring down obesity.
“The indoor smoking ban is a good example of a policy that provoked a great deal of resistance from public and corporations with vested interests. But legislation happened anyway, and attitudes caught up.
“That’s the sort of approach that must be taken with regards to controlling these kinds of foods, which are as dangerous to health as smoking.”
Prof Vogel said that the decision to delay restrictions on junk food advertising was “not supported by evidence” which shows that price promotions increase spending on unhealthy foods.
“If the government was serious about supporting families to move away from these cheap, unhealthy promotions they would have introduced the ban as intended.”
She praised Mayor Sadiq Khan’s move to make school meals free for every child in primary school in London and called on other regions to do the same.
“This decision will help many families’ food bills and also removes the stigma some children face when taking up free school meals because all children will be encouraged to eat the school provided meal.”
