Tackling Obesity in England - National Audit Office

TACKLING OBESITY IN ENGLANDAppendix4The demographic distribution of obesity inEnglandMost people get fatter as they getolder1 In general, weight increases with age. Data from theHealth Survey for England 1 suggest that people of bothsexes gain weight most rapidly in their twenties andearly-thirties and continue to put on weight graduallyinto their seventies. Figure 29 shows the percentage ofoverweight and obese men and women of different ageranges as measured by Health Survey for England datafrom 1998.Obesity in children is increasing2 The only nationally representative British study of theheight and weight of primary school children was theNational Study of Health and Growth (1974-1994). Thisstudy shows that the prevalence of obesity in children islow, but has increased substantially since the mid1980s. The study estimates that overweight increasedbetween 1984 and 1994 from 5.6% to 9% in boys andfrom 9.3% to 13.5% in girls in England. The prevalenceof obesity increased correspondingly to 1.7% for boysand 2.6% for girls. 343 The presence of obesity in adolescence is highlycorrelated with chronic obesity in adulthood 12 . Therising trend of obesity in children and young peopletherefore has very serious implications for the futureprevalence of obesity in the adult population.People in lower socio-economicgroups are more likely to be obese4 Education, social class and prosperity have an importantinfluence on the risk of becoming obese. In general,obesity tends to be more prevalent in the lower socioeconomicand lower income groups. The most recent29 Percentage of overweight and obese men and women in 1998 by age range807060Percentage with BMI over 255040302010appendix four0MenWomenAge range52Source: National Audit Office analysis of Health Survey for England 1 data