Dominic Hughes reports: “It may be that finally the messages on healthy eating and lots of exercise are starting to take hold”
‘Urgent’ call for obesity taskforce
Healthy living: How to live longer
The rise in childhood obesity, which has left one in three children overweight, may be beginning to level off in the under-10s, a study suggests.
It found a steady rise in the proportion of overweight children in England in 1994-2003, but in the past decade it has remained at about 30%.
The King’s College London researchers add obesity rates among 11- to 15-year-olds are still rising, however.
And Public Health England said there was no room for complacency.
Experts believe that being significantly overweight is responsible for a wide range of health problems such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, some cancers and infertility.
The number of obese people in the UK has more than trebled in the past 25 years.
Obesity levels among children have also been rising during this period. One in three children in the UK is now overweight, while one in five is obese.
But data from other sources had previously suggested that childhood obesity levels were now starting to plateau or even fall slightly.
