We're raising the fattest generation of seven to eleven year olds. According to a study published by Leeds Metropolitan University, one in nine children in this age group is medically obese.There have been a number of studies like this which have identified the problem amongst older children but, for the first time, major concerns have been raised about toddlers piling on the pounds. According to recent research published in The British Medical Journal, more than one in five of Britain’s under fours is overweight, and one in ten is classed as clinically obese. Researchers at Liverpool University found that 23.6% of children under four are overweight, compared with only 14.7% ten years ago.

Children of that age are often naturally chubby, with little pot bellies and ringlets of fat around their wrists. But medical experts reckon that too many of these youngsters are now dangerously rotund, and risk damaging their long term health.

‘It’s very worrying because obesity is linked to problems, such as heart disease and premature death. A significant number of these children may have ongoing weight problems in later life,’ says Dr Peter Bundred, who led the study. Basically, fat children often grow up into fat adults. The longer a child is fat, the more at risk they are of staying that way in later life. In the short term, overweight children can have problems with mobility, abnormalities in glucose metabolism, and suffer emotional problems, especially if they become a target for bullies.

They’re not active enough and they’re eating the wrong sorts of foods

Dr Bundred says that changes in lifestyle are to blame. ‘We now have a situation where many mothers work, come home and need to do the housework, so they sit their children in front of the television or video.’

Judy More, a Paediatric Dietician with the British Dietetic Association, agrees: ‘Children are less active today than they used to be. They don’t walk as much, they’re driven everywhere, and they don’t play outdoors as they would have done.’ She adds that few parents cook, relying instead on convenience foods, which can have a very high fat content. ‘Fat and sugar are cheap ingredients for food manufacturers to use,’ she explains. Many of the fast food staples of children’s diets are high in fat. ‘Take fish fingers; they’re fried, so the fat content is quite high, compared to a mother cooking some fish at home, which might be poached in milk or water. Similarly, beef burgers are high in fat, if you buy from the supermarket as opposed to your butcher, who might make his own.’

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Tubby toddlers