National Child Measurement Programme 2021/22 School Year Outputs
Published:
This report presents provisional findings from the Government's National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) for England, 2021/22 school year. The findings presented here are based on children that were measured between September 2021 and May 2022.
Obesity and severe obesity prevalence levels in 2021/22 are still higher than those in 2019/20. The proportion of overweight children decreased between 2020-21 and 2021-22.
Main Findings:
- There was a slight increase in the proportion of underweight children across both age groups. Among Reception children, this rose from 0.9% in 2020-21 to 1.1% in 2021-22. In Year 6 pupils, this went up from 1.2% to 1.5%.
- The prevalence of obesity in Reception had been relatively stable since 2006/07 but saw a 4.6 percentage point increase from 9.9% in 2019/20 to 14.4% in 2020/21.
- Provisional data shows this has decreased for children in Reception in 2021/22 to 10.4%.
- For Year 6, the prevalence of obesity was increasing slowly from 19.0% in 2010/11 to 21.0% in 2019/20 and then increased by 4.5 percentage points to 25.5% in 2020/21.
- Provisional data shows this has decreased for children in Year 6 in 2021/22 to 23.5%
- Boys have a higher obesity prevalence than girls for both age groups
- In Reception, 10.6% of boys were obese compared to 10.2% of girls
- In Year 6, 26.5% of boys were obese compared to 20.3% of girls
Further breakdowns by geography, ethnicity and levels of deprivation will be provided in the final report, planned to be published in November 2022.
