NEW figures released by the NHS have revealed obesity rates in children across the country, which remain higher than at any other period on record.

New NHS data shows 22.1 per cent of children in Year 6 were obese in 2023/24, down from 22.7 per cent in 2022/23. although the figure is still higher than the years before the pandemic.

A total of 25.5 per cent of children were obese in 2020/21 – the first year of Covid-19 – which was up sharply from 21 per cent in 2019/20.

Winchester has performed relatively well with 230 overweight and obese children, a factor largely attributed to its affluence.

Dr Helen Stewart, officer for health improvement at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: “It’s impossible to ignore that poorer children are over twice as likely to be obese than their richer peers. This is a long-standing health inequality that successive governments have failed to tackle.

“It is clear to paediatricians that progress on childhood obesity cannot be achieved without also addressing our out-of-control rates of childhood poverty and deprivation."

The figures have been published by NHS England and are based on findings from the Government’s National Child Measurement Programme, which covers mainstream state-maintained schools.

The data has been compiled by the postcode address of the child, not the postcode address of their school.