A new study, published in The Journal of Public Health which examined changes in BMI in children aged 4-11 years, found that that the number of obese children approximately doubles between the first and last years of primary school and that children who are obese when they start school are likely to continue to be overweight by the time they leave for secondary school.
This is the first study to use data from the same group of children as part of the Government's National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP).
The NCMP is an annual programme that involves the weighing and measuring of children in Reception year and Year 6 children in primary schools. It recognized internationally as a world-class source of public healthintelligence and is used to monitor trends in bodyweight across England.
The study which was led by Matthew Pearce and colleagues analysed data from 1,863 children in South Gloucestershire whose weight was measured in 2006-7 when they were in reception and again in 2012-13 during their final year at primary school.
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