These terrible new child obesity numbers
Obviously, we mean clearly, something must be done:
Since the first Complications from Excess Weight clinic (CEW) opened in 2021, the NHS has treated 6,497 children and teenagers. Of these, 423 were four years old, 1,088 were aged between five and eight, 1,791 were aged nine to 12 and 3,137 were aged between 13 and 17. The age of a further 58 is unknown.
As we all know Our NHS never leaves anyting untreated so we have there a good grasp of the numbers of children so obese that it causes problems large enough to require treatment. Thus the question becomes, well, is that a large number?
There are some 14 million children (under 18) in the UK*. So that’s 0.05% of children with this problem. Which is really rather different from the more usual claim that 2.5 million children are living with obesity etc (15 or 16% of under 15s we think that number is).
A significant number were neurodivergent. Just under 30% had autism and about 12% had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. A further 24% had a learning disability.
It’s also possible to mutter that weight is not the only problem here for many of them. We might even start to think that this so heavy as to be significantly problematic applies to 0.025% of the children of the country. As a rough guess from the numbers presented that is.
And, well, is this a problem? It is true that if we found 0.025% of the children of the country were being sacrificed at pagan temples then we’d be doing a great deal of work in tracking down and dealing with the priests and temples of Baal and Tlaloc, yes. So it is possibly a problem to be dealt with.
Experts said the figures were extremely worrying and called for immediate action to curb sales of junk food and make healthier food cheaper.
On the other hand we’d think that cracking down upon and banning all religion for the 0.025% that suffered would be a bit much. So, is changing the diet of the entire nation for that 0.025% the correct, or a heavy handed, response?
In the end we come down to opinion, of course. Ours is that banning BOGOFs on supermarket pizza is not justified by the medical treatment required by one fourtieth of one percent, or even one twentieth of one percent, of children. Others might not share that view, we agree, but then the Single Issue Fanatics are always with us.
Tim Worstall
*We’ve not bothered to correct for the 6k being over 5 years, the 14 million being the stock in the one year. The true numbers are even lower therefore.