News

Sir Sam Everington, chairman of NHS Tower Hamlets clinical commissioning group, has made the claim after 11% of children in the London borough are obese by the age of five.

He told the Times: “Parents have the right to know the health of a school, including the rates of obesity, when deciding where to send their child. Health is as important as English and maths.

“Every parent when choosing a school will think ‘will my child be happy and healthy here?’. This is not emphasised by the Department of Health or teachers. Headteachers should know the health of their pupils.”

However, the call has faced mounting criticism from the education sector.

Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary for the Association of School and College Leaders, told the newspaper: “Rating a school on the weight of its pupils is completely inappropriate.

“Schools cannot be ranked on something they have limited control of. We need to be ensuring that schools are providing the education so that children, and their families, make informed health decisions on diet.”

“A school is responsible for the overall education of children, which includes providing information on nutrition, physical activity and healthy lifestyle, but ultimately it is the parents who have most influence.

“In areas with more deprivation, exposing and publishing childhood obesity levels is potentially divisive and may stigmatise some groups.”

Most recent data reveals around a third of children in Britain are overweight and more than a fifth classed as clinically obese by the time they leave primary school.