CLAIMS that one in six children is dangerously overweight and that Britain is in the grip of an obesity epidemic are exaggerations used by the Government to support ill-conceived health policies, a study suggests.

The Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC), an independent think-tank, concludes that ministers and some health lobbyists are using an out-dated system to calculate obesity and create a doomsday scenario for public health.

The “national standard”, which is used by the Government to assess obesity, suggests that more than 15 per cent of all children are obese. But the researchers found that the “international standard” — which also compares body mass and height but includes a broader sample — suggested that fewer than 7 per cent of children were dangerously overweight.

Peter Marsh, co-director of the SIRC, said that although ministers and campaigners talked of exponential rises in obesity, a study of body mass index data showed that the average weight of girls and boys aged under 16 had increased by just half a kilo over the past decade.

Dr Marsh said that ministers needed to rethink policies paraded at the launch of the Government’s Public Health White Paper, last November. Rather than concentrating on schemes to lower childhood obesity, such as stopping junk-food advertising on children’s TV, the focus should be on the middle-aged and elderly.

The Commons Select Committee on Health gave warning last year that obesity rates were so bad that half of all children would be obese by 2020 and many would probably die before their parents.

The committee said the country faced a doomsday scenario where thousands would lose limbs and sight from fat-related illnesses, citing the case of a child aged 3 whose death was blamed partly on obesity. Doctors described the incident as one of several cases of children “choking on their own fat”. After the report, the Government said that it was considering the introduction of an annual “fat test”.

Dr Marsh said the picture being created was wildly inaccurate. The SIRC report, based on data from the Health Survey for England 2003, concludes: “We do no service to the people at risk of obesity-related morbidities in our society by hyping their plight. . . . Banning advertising of junk food to children and similar measures may be popular in some quarters but they are targeted at the wrong age group. Most weight gain starts to occur after children leave school.”

David Haslam, chairman of the National Obesity Forum and a GP in Hertfordshire, described the SIRC report as unhelpful when it was widely acknowledged that action was needed on childhood obesity.

“Childhood obesity does exist and changes need to be made to stave off an epidemic in the future. This problem does exist and to hide it is not helpful.”

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