Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of childhood obesity levels in (a) Coventry North East constituency and (b) Coventry in each of the last five years; what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on levels of obesity among children in those areas; and what steps his Department is taking to tackle childhood obesity.

The National Child Measurement Programme collects data on children aged four to five years old and 10 to 11 years old. Data is not available at Parliamentary constituency level.

For children aged four to five years old, the prevalence of obesity in the Coventry local authority area was 11.7% in the academic year 2019/20; 10.2% in 2018/19; 10.5% in 2017/18; 10.1% in 2016/17; and 9.4% in 2015/16. For children aged 10 to 11 years old, the prevalence of obesity in Coventry was 25.3% in 2019/20; 22.6% in 2018/19; 23.5% in 2017/18; 24.2% in 2016/17; and 23.1% in 2015/16.

Data is not currently available for Coventry for 2020/21 therefore the impact of COVID-19 is not yet known.

The Department published ‘Tackling obesity: empowering adults and children to live healthier lives’ in 2020, which aims to reduce obesity, taking forward actions from previous chapters of the childhood obesity plan.