Nearly one in five 10 and 11-year-olds in England is obese, according to NHS figures. With childhood obesity posing not just a nationwide, but a worldwide health threat, public health researchers around the globe are striving to establish which aspects of a young child’s life might set them on a path to being obese later…
Tag: Obesity
Giving children the best possible start – what matters most?
Child of our Time Editor Yvonne Kelly spoke to a 500-strong audience of politicians and professionals in Gothenburg recently on what matters when it comes to giving children the best possible start in life. Yvonne was the keynote speaker at the conference hoping to identify the best strategies for making Gothenburg a more equal and socially sustainable city. Yvonne,…
Putting a SPRING in the step of mums-to-be
Making sure that mums-to-be are in the best possible health is key to ensuring their baby gets the best possible start in life. But what sorts of things can help them achieve that? In this episode of the Child of our Time Podcast, Professor Hazel Inskip from the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit at the University of Southampton,…
Better start for children
Giving children the best possible start in life is the topic of a keynote talk today by our editor Yvonne Kelly. Yvonne will be presenting a range of new evidence from the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies to politicians, business leaders, and other professionals and key decision makers at an event discussing how Gothenburg can be made…
Sugar-coating the childhood obesity problem
Child obesity figures appear to be on the rise again, causing much concern after earlier signs they had levelled off. The proportion of 10- and 11-year-olds who were obese in 2015-16 was 19.8 percent, up 0.7 percent on the year before. There was a rise of 0.2 percent among four- and five-year-olds. The announcement comes as researchers at the ESRC International Centre for…
BMI development and early adolescent psychosocial well-being
Research looking at how and when children become overweight is helping to shed new light on ongoing efforts by the Government and others to tackle the childhood obesity epidemic. A team of researchers at the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies at UCL has also been asking whether children who are overweight are more likely to go…
Girls growing up – questions of early puberty
The early onset of puberty in girls has been linked with better bone health in older women, but it is also associated with a host of negative outcomes including teenage pregnancy and serious ill health in mid-life. With girls over the last few decades starting their periods earlier and earlier, this is a real cause…
Born in Bradford
Born in Bradford is a fascinating child health development project following the lives of thousands of children in the city. It hopes to find out more about the causes of childhood illness by studying children from all cultures and backgrounds as their lives unfold. In this Child of our Time Podcast episode, one of the project’s lead researchers,…
Giving children a better start
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…
Why poorer children are at greater risk of obesity
Obesity may be the biggest public health crisis facing the UK today. Levels have risen more than three fold since 1980. Being obese makes you vulnerable to a range of health risks. Being an overweight child makes it more likely you will become an obese adult. And you are much more likely to be an…