Child Measurement Programme annual report 2023 to 2024

• All Wales/National
• Annual

This report summarises the data collected across Wales during the 2023-2024 school year for the purposes of surveillance.

Key Points

All children aged 4-5 years attending reception class and residing in Wales were offered routine height and weight measurements by school nursing teams. These data are reported Nationally to facilitate surveillance.

• For Wales overall, there was a return to pre-pandemic participation with 93.4% of children being weighed and measured this year.
• In Wales as a whole, the proportion of children with a healthy weight was 73.5%, which is a slightly lower proportion compared to last year (74.3%) but statistically significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels (72.4%).
• In Wales as a whole, the proportion of children with overweight or with obesity was 13.7% and 11.8% respectively.
• The proportion of children with obesity in Wales was higher than that reported for England and for Scotland.
• Children residing in the most deprived ‘deprivation fifth’ were more likely to be living with overweight or obesity compared with the least deprived fifth, next least deprived fifth, middle deprived fifth and next most deprived fifth.
• Boys were statistically significantly more likely to be underweight compared to girls with the proportion of boys living with underweight at 1.3% compared to 0.6% for girls.
• This year’s results showed a statistically significant difference between rural and urban areas.
• The proportion of children in rural areas who were living with overweight or obesity was 26.8% compared to 25.0% in urban areas.