Opinion  

In January the House of Commons' public accounts committee unleashed a report lambasting the government for its ineffectual fight against obesity.  A particular aspect of its strategy, measuring children at school but not allowing school nurses to tell either the children or their parents what the measurements were, came in for particular criticism from this committee.  

It is unlikely, however, that this strategy will be amended because some doctors still fear that sending measurements home will stigmatise fat children, turn them into anorexics overnight and open them up to bullying. 

Parents should be told about their child's weight

It is arrogance beyond belief for the DoH to ‘discourage' parents from being told what shape their children are in, just in case the 20 per cent of the class who might be overweight get picked on. It is also absurd to believe that an obese child will switch to being anorexic in a day, a week or even a month.

The arrogance is particularly misguided when the DoH insists that it is parents who have prime responsibility for raising their children healthily. To deny them figures that will show them how well they are doing is a logic passing strange.

Sending the data home is essential because research has shown a significant number of parents have little idea of what a healthy weight is. In part this is because so many children are now above average weight that parents believe their children are average too.

It is also because the growth charts currently distributed in the Personal Child Health Record (PCHR or the 'red book') are not very good for assessing body composition. For all the failings of BMI, knowing their children's BMI would be much more informative for parents. However, including BMI charts in the PCHR has also been vetoed by senior doctors.

DoH has squandered a health promotion opportunity BMI by itself would, of course, be of limited use unless accompanied by an explanation. This was recognised by the House of Common's health committee in its seminal 2004 report on obesity. Having travelled to countries where parents were given both figures and meaningful advice, this group of MPs recommended the UK follow suit. Unfortunately, the DoH promptly ignored the proposal and squandered the opportunity for some simple, cost-effective public health promotion. 

The health committee also recommended that measuring every UK child's BMI should become an annual event in order to pick up concerning trends. The middle years of primary school are a particular risk period for later obesity and early, yearly measurements would easily pick up those children headed that way. 

But the DoH also chose to ignore this advice. It declared that school measurements would be taken only twice, six years apart during the reception year and year 6 . This more or less guaranteed that valuable information on trends towards obesity would be missed.  In addition, because parents were also allowed to 'opt-out' their children from the measuring, only 48 per cent of the targeted year groups got measured. 

The public accounts committee had a point in its criticism, don't you think?

Tam Fry is honorary chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, the UK's leading charity relating to children's growth