Childhood Obesity

There is continued concern over the levels of obesity among children in Scotland. Being overweight or obese during childhood is a health concern in itself, but can also lead to physical and mental health problems in later life, such as heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, back pain, increased risk of cancer, low self-esteem and depression.

Obesity develops when calorie intake exceeds energy expenditure. However, this simple picture is affected by a range of complex social and environmental factors that strongly influence individual choices. These include, for example, marketing of energy dense and high salt foods to children, environments that are safe for walking and leisure, provision of public transport and schools that support physical activity and healthy travel. Management of childhood obesity therefore involves helping children increase their physical activity (and consequently their energy expenditure) while reducing their calorie intake. This is reflected in the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) guideline on the management of obesity in children and young people, published in 2003 (SIGN publication No. 69 - Edinburgh: SIGN, 2003).

The calculation of body mass index (BMI) is one of the most widely used methods for assessing body composition or estimating levels of body fat. An individual's BMI (weight in kilograms divided by height in metres squared) is compared to reference data to assess whether weight is in proportion to height and therefore gives an indication of body "fatness" or "thinness". There are a number of limitations to using BMI to estimate levels of obesity in children, which are outlined in our obesity statistics and BMI background notes, however it has the advantage that it can be derived from data routinely collected by the Child Health Systems Programme.

These pages look at trends in the percentages of children with high and low BMI in recent years, for both pre-school and school age children.

• Obesity Statistics and BMI background notes
  The BMI obesity statistics and further information on how ISD have derived these from Child Health Systems Programme data.
  
  
• Child Health Systems Programme
  Background information on the data collected and implementation dates.