Please can you provide the childhood obesity figures for London for every year since 2016?

Children’s height and weight is measured in Reception (aged 4-5 years) and Year 6 (aged 10-11 years) as part of the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP).  This information is publicly available at National Child Measurement Programme - NHS Digital, but is included below for completeness.

Children are classified as overweight (including obese) if their BMI is on or above the 85th centile of the British 1990 growth reference (UK90) according to age and sex.

Prevalence of children with a Body Mass Index classified as obese (including severely obese) is given as a proportion of all children measured.

Reception: Prevalence of obesity (including severe obesity) London Region

Period

Value

2015/16

10.3%

2016/17

10.3%

2017/18

10.1%

2018/19

10.2%

2019/20

10.0%

2020/21

15.3%

Year 6: Prevalence of obesity (including severe obesity) London Region

Period

Value

2015/16

23.2%

2016/17

23.6%

2017/18

23.1%

2018/19

23.2%

2019/20

23.7%

2020/21

30.0%

Children are classified as overweight (including obese) if their BMI is on or above the 85th centile of the British 1990 growth reference (UK90) according to age and sex.

Reception: Prevalence of overweight (including obesity) London Region

Period

Value

2015/16

22.0%

2016/17

22.3%

2017/18

21.8%

2018/19

21.8%

2019/20

21.6%

2020/21

27.2%

Year 6: Prevalence of overweight (including obesity) London Region

Period

Value

2015/16

38.1%

2016/17

38.5%

2017/18

37.7%

2018/19

37.9%

2019/20

38.2%

2020/21

45.2%

Notes

*The 2019/20 NCMP data collection stopped in March 2020 when schools were closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The number of children measured was around 75% of previous years however analysis by NHS Digital indicates that figures are directly comparable to previous years.

*Data for 2020/21 – The proportion of eligible children measured through the NCMP was much lower because of school closures up to March 2021 and a different approach to the data collection to account for this. Due to the impact of COVID 19 the collection was carried out as a sample and statistical weighting was applied which is representative of the population and results are broadly comparable to previous years.  Only children with valid geographical coding (postcode of residence) have been included in this analysis.