More than 22 per cent of Croydon’s children aged 10 to 11 are obese – making the borough one of the worst areas for child obesity, according to a report published by The Economist magazine.
The magazine’s mapping of obesity areas, based on figures from Public Health England, offers a worrying insight into the potential health problems for much of London among those children who were born in 2004.
The Economist says: “Obesity maps of America show slender cities and a bulging countryside. In England the opposite is true: the overweight are concentrated in urban areas and rural folk are slimmer.
“In both countries obesity is associated with poverty. The differing patterns may be explained by the fact that much of England’s thin ‘countryside’, particularly in the south, in fact lies in the well-off commuter belts of cities. Remoter, poorer rural areas, in the far north, south-west and east, are tubbier. In both countries people underestimate how fat their fellow citizens are: most guess around half are overweight, when the reality is nearer two-thirds.
“On December 11, England’s chief medical officer called for obesity to be classified as a ‘national risk’. Food for thought over Christmas.”
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