1. Childhood Obesity Monitoring: findings from the 2006 exercise for the West Midlands Dr Alison Teale Public Health Specialist Trainee

2. Overview The national monitoring programme West Midlands findings - completeness of data - rates of obesity and overweight Issues and further information

3. Background Public Service Agreement target “to halt the year on year rise in obesity among children aged under 11 by 2010”. PSA sets a challenging target for PCTs (and Local Authorities)

4. The monitoring programme National Childhood Obesity Monitoring launched by DH in 2006 (now called National Child Measurement Programme) Children aged 4/5 and 10/11 included Organised by PCTs, takes place in schools First year = steep learning curve! PHOs involved in analysis of national database

5. The monitoring process Opt-outs: whole schools, parents, children Monitoring undertaken by School Nurses, Health Visitors, Nursery Nurses Not a screening programme – but parents can request feedback for their child (now within one month only) Secure database held nationally PCT can get detailed data for their own area, less detailed for other areas

6. W Mids completeness Completeness = % of children who could have been measured, that were Some doubts over accuracy of the denominators Reception year 16 - 88% Year 6 4 – 90% Various reasons for low completeness

7. W Mids obesity rates Reception Year (38,655 measured) Average = 10.1% (3919 children) Year 6 (23,578 measured) Average = 17.6% (4140 children) Variation in completeness means that rates for individual PCTs must be viewed with caution

8. 2006/07 data collection Data collection for 06/07 now complete New DH Guidance – changes from first year of monitoring Improvements to IT support, clearer definitions and more supporting information Extra data items including ethnicity Changes to central database

9. What about feedback for schools? Schools central to the process Obesity rates for individual schools are subject to wide variation due to small numbers involved and should be used with extreme caution S Staffs decided not to feedback individual schools rates to avoid negative publicity and anxiety if a school has a high rate Used Control Chart techniques instead to identify outliers and explored these further; results fed into local action planning process

10. The future Ongoing process, improvements to data collection process being made Monitoring provides a highly valuable resource for public health Childhood obesity presents a complex challenge in changing behaviour, and schools cannot tackle this issue alone Monitoring process provides an opportunity to engage more closely with schools, parents and children, and other partners in tackling obesity

11. Finally Monitoring process is a very considerable undertaking Thanks to all those children, parents, school staff and PCT staff who are involved!