Child obesity is on the rise

If you thought that school children were getting more chunky, the size increase doesn’t appear to be stabilising.

It is estimated that one in ten children in England will be obese by 2015, suggests research published ahead of print in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Children who come from the least affluent and less well educated households are more likely to become obese.

Researchers assessed obesity trends in children aged from two to ten and 11 to 18.

The data came from the annual Health Survey for England.

The research was led by Dr Emmanuel Stamatakis, from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University College London.

The authors conclude that: “ The number and prevalence of obese young people is projected to increase dramatically, and these increases will affect lower social classes to a larger extent.”