Children with obesity in Wales need NHS help, expert says

More than a quarter of children starting school in Wales are overweight and need specialist NHS help, a leading expert has said.

11 per cent of four to five-year-olds in Wales are obese, Nadim Haboubi, chairman of the Welsh Obesity Society, said. He also knows of nine-year-olds with type 2 diabetes, he added.

NHS clinics were available of adults but children had to wait until they were 16 to be seen.

The Welsh Government said it was committed to tackling the problem.

Obesity in Wales is worse than any other UK nation - 59 per cent of adults are overweight and 23 per cent obese, according to the National Survey for Wales 2016-17.

Among reception-age children, 26 per cent were found to be overweight or obese during the latest annual Child Measurement Programme in schools, compared to 22 per cent in England.

It showed 11 per cent were obese in Wales, while over the border the average dropped to 9 per cent.

Sioned Quirke, a specialist dietician in obesity and spokeswoman for the British Dietetic Association, said: “It's absolutely ridiculous, we know there's a massive problem out there and the Welsh Government is being a bit timid about enforcing health boards to do something about it.”

Haboubi said: “Services and support for obese adults are improving slowly but, as far as services for children go, there's nothing - they just have to wait until they become adults.

"But by then it can be too late. We now have type 2 diabetes in children aged nine, 10 and 11... it's a middle age condition linked to unhealthy lifestyles and shouldn't be happening to children.

“We - the Welsh Obesity Society - are actively lobbying for better services for children to be established and the sooner the better

"I think there's a lot of will for it to happen but not the resources.”

A Welsh government spokesman added: “Recent data from the Child Measurement Programme show levels of overweight and obesity in reception year children continue to level off, with most children achieving a healthy weight.

“The number of children and young people in Wales with type 2 diabetes is very small; around 96 per cent of children and young people with diabetes have type 1 diabetes, which is not lifestyle related.

"Children and young people affected by type 2 diabetes will be supported to manage their condition by specialist paediatric diabetes units throughout Wales.”