Obesity rates in Dudley children above national average
Obesity rates for young children in Dudley are higher than the English average, with deprivation playing a big part.
A report for Dudley Council’s Social Care and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee, which is set to meet on Wednesday (October 22), reveals the latest data on obesity in Reception-age and Year Six youngsters.
The information was gathered by the National Child Measurement Programme which places a legal duty on local authorities to collect height and weight data as part of national public health surveillance.
The committee report, signed by Heema Shukla, Dudley interim director of public health and wellbeing, said: “Although for the period 2021/22 to 2023/24 children in Reception and Year Six who were overweight or obese in Dudley reduced, there is still a higher prevalence of overweight or obese children in both Reception and Year Six children in Dudley when compared to England.”
In the Reception-age category for 2023/24, 24.2 per cent of children were overweight in Dudley while the national average is 22.1 percent. In the borough 10.2 percent were classed as obese or severely obese, compared to 9.6 percent across England.
For Year Six children aged 10-11 in the same timeframe, 39 per cent in Dudley were overweight while in England the percentage was 35.8. Obesity or severe obesity in the same age group in the borough was 24.8 percent; nationally the percentage for the same category was 22.1.
There were big differences in the rates of overweight children between wards with higher levels of deprivation in the borough compared to more well-off areas.
In Quarry Bank and Dudley Wood obesity rates in Reception-age children was 30.1 percent, nearly double the rate of the lowest percentage, 15.9 percent, in Halesowen South.
For Year Six youngsters Castle and Priory had the highest rate, 48.2 percent, while the lowest was Norton at 27.9 percent.
The link between obesity and deprivation is nationally recognised, NHS England said: “In 2020/21, obesity prevalence was over twice as high for children living in the most deprived areas (20.3 percent) than for children living in the least deprived areas (7.8 percent).”
Dudley however fares better than its neighbours, the scrutiny committee report added: “When compared to the Black Country the prevalence of obesity in both Reception and Year Six is better than Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.”
