Child of our Time Editor, Yvonne Kelly will today be discussing why poorer children are more likely to be obese than their better off peers at a Big Lottery Fund event looking at how to give young children a better start in life.
She will be sharing recent research from the team at the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies at UCL looking at patterns of obesity in young children using data from the Millennium Cohort Study.
The research finds that children from poorer backgrounds are the most likely to be obese and that the inequalities between richer and poorer children increase over time (between the ages of 5 and 11).
The research also identifies a number of other important factors associated with childhood obesity including smoking during pregnancy, mother’s obesity, skipping breakfast and irregular bedtimes.
The event, A Better Start ‘Focus on Diet and Nutrition is part of a programme of evaluation of the Lottery Funded ‘A Better Start’ initiative which aims to improve the life chances of babies and very young children by delivering a significant increase in the use of preventative approaches in pregnancy and first three years of life.
Yvonne is one of a group of experts and innovators in the field of child health and development to be invited to participate in the first of the initiative’s Learning and Development events. Other speakers include Eustace de Sousa, the lead for children, young people and families at Public Health England and Michael Hallsworth, director for Health at the Government’s Behavioural Insights Team, Chris Cuthbert, Director of the Big Lottery Development Fund and Celia Supiah, CEO of the charity Parents 1st.
- Download Yvonne’s slides
- Read a blog post from Yvonne about the research
- Read the research published in the European Journal of Public Health
- Listen to a podcast with Yvonne’s colleague, Professor Amanda Sacker talking about adolescents and obesity.
- Photo credit: National Assembly for Wales