Some of you who read Ukmedix news on a regular basis may remember when we reported that the UK government was attempting to make headway into stopping the childhood obesity problem by having all children weighed and measured. The idea was that not only would the individual children and their parents be made aware of their weight problems but also that the UK health authorities would be identify areas where obesity was a problem and areas where it was not and also where anti obesity measures were working.

At the time of the announcement many parents of overweight children were concerned that their kids would be humiliated at being weighed and measured but the government pushed ahead saying that the health of the nation had to come first. The health authorities also issued guidelines for teachers so that the children would not be embarrassed when be weighed.

The weighing that has been going on for some months now however has been sabotaged to a certain extent by the parents of overweight and obese children who are refusing to allow the schools to weigh them. What this has done is take many of the nations fattest and most obese children out of the statistics and this paints a much rosier overall picture of the obesity problem in the UK.

Also there have been problems with many local heath trusts not getting around to weighing the children citing a lack of time and money to do so. This means that there are gaps of information in the overall problem of childhood obesity in the UK.

The Minister for Public Health is due to release the statistics very soon and will have to explain why the obesity information for the UK is not completely clear. The National Childhood Obesity Database as it is called will nevertheless be used to build on getting the complete obesity picture. The Minister is likely to implement measures that make it obligatory for all health trusts to compile weight and height measurements for all 4 to 5 year olds in order to get better information.