One in 10 children in England is obese by the time of starting primary school, with particular problems in inner cities and poor areas, official statistics show today. In some areas the figure is 1 in 6.

A map of health inequalities, produced by the Department of Health, shows that 9.9 per cent of children in their first year of school is obese. The calculation has been determined by body mass index (BMI) measurements taken at school last year.

The borough of Hackney, in East London, has the highest rate of obese children (16 per cent), while Teesdale in Co Durham has the lowest (5per cent).

It is the first time that the figures have been broken down by each local council, borough and unitary authority in England, as opposed to by regional NHS organisations.

Campaigners argue that action needs to be taken before children start school yet information about healthy living is not getting through to new parents as the number of health visitors remains low and school nurses are overstretched.

Government figures released in February showed that nearly a quarter of children aged 4 to 5 (22.9 per cent) and almost a third of 10 to 11-year-olds (31.6 per cent) were either obese or overweight as measured by body mass index (BMI) scores. The new data categorises those with the worst weight problems.

If no action is taken to reverse current trends, 60 per cent of men, half of female and one quarter of children will be obese by 2050, experts predict.

For the past two years, children aged 6 and 11 have been weighed and measured as part of government plans to cut childhood obesity. BMI is then calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by their height in metres, squared. A BMI score of 25 or above is considered overweight, while 30 and over is obese. But the figures may underestimate the real situation as parents can elect to “opt out” of having their children weighed at school.

A report published this month by Ofsted, the children's services inspectorate, concluded that millions of pounds spent on tackling obesity, smoking and alcohol misuse among children have had scarcely any effect on improving the health of younger generations.

Ministers admitted yesterday that the health gap between well-off and deprived wards within each local authority remained unacceptable.

The health profiles, published online today, were prepared for every local authority and region across England by the Department of Health and the Association of Public Health Observatories.

Health chiefs said that they would help the NHS and local authorities to target their resources more effectively and allow the public to hold their local health services to account. Dawn Primarolo, the Minister for Public Health, said: “Inequalities around the country are stark, but the NHS and local authorities can use these profiles to target health hotspots with effective measures to make a real difference.” The profiles reveal that on average almost nine out of 10 children aged 5 to 16 have at least two hours of sport or PE a week. Those in Newcastle under-Lyme had the lowest proportion meeting that target, at 63 per cent, while children in the Malvern Hills had the highest proportion, at 99 per cent.

By region, London had the worst figures for child obesity, with on average 11.3 per cent of children obese. The South East was the region with the least physically active children (only 85 per cent having at least two hours of sport or PE a week) but also the least obese (8.7 per cent).

Low breastfeeding rates are associated with high rates of childhood obesity, as mothers wean their children on artificial milk and foods. But only about one third of mothers in areas such as Knowsley, Merseyside, and Hartlepool had started breastfeeding their children, against 90 per cent in Lambeth and Richmond. Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum and Child Growth Foundation, called the figures horrific. He said: “We need to be reaching new parents from pregnancy onwards, to ensure that early messages about lifestyle and health are there for the formative years of a child's life.”

Legislation is going through Parliament that will increase awareness of the importance of healthy diets and breastfeeding among other factors, but this should have happened ten years ago, he said.

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: “It is a stark wake-up call when we see that over a quarter of our children are overweight before they even start secondary school.”

Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: “These figures show that the Government has taken the wrong approach to tackling obesity. The Conservative Party is committed to ensuring families receive intensive support from health visitors so that we can help them get nutrition, including breastfeeding, right from the outset.”

Health profiles for each region of England are available to view online at www.healthprofiles.info

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