NURSES are opposing government plans to measure and weigh primary school children annually. They say the tests would be “an invasion of pupils’ privacy”.

The nurses believe the medicals, intended to begin in autumn next year to tackle obesity, could stigmatise fat children.

John Thain, the Royal College of Nursing’s adviser on children and young people’s nursing, said: “We already know that children with weight problems can have low self-esteem. If they are told that the whole class is going to be weighed, how will that make them feel? Children have the right to receive support and advice and not to be singled out.”

He added: “They already feel under pressure from exams and the new standard assessment tests. If we add on a physical examination, children are going to perceive adults as figures who put them under surveillance.”

Thain conceded that a national programme of weigh-ins could provide interesting medical statistics but maintained that nurses would do better to run drop-in clinics for overweight children.

Health campaigners dismiss these objections, pointing out that 1m British children under 16 are now obese, according to a report published last month by the British Medical Association board of science.

The report said doctors were diagnosing in children and young people diseases and disorders previously found mainly in the middle-aged and elderly, including type 2 diabetes, problems with joints and early signs of heart disease.

The percentage of children aged under 11 who are overweight increased from 23% in 1995 to 28% in 2003.

The nurses’ objections to co-operating with the national scheme to measure children’s body mass index were raised last month at a workshop organised by the Child Growth Foundation.

Tam Fry, chairman of the foundation, said: “Some people are now becoming so politically correct that they believe weighing children is an invasion of their privacy. This is just namby-pamby.”

Professor Julian Peto, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, added: “We have been measuring and weighing children for years. To say that this is an invasion of children’s privacy is absolutely absurd. This politically correct assertion completely contradicts common sense and experience.

“Children need to be made aware of whether they are overweight and whether their weight is getting better or worse.”

He added: “It could prevent them developing diabetes or heart disease. If these children continue to be obese they will die seven years earlier.”

Last year a Commons health select committee report called for the traditional annual school medical, including weighing and measuring children, to be brought back.

The report said the results should be sent home in confidence to the parents of primary school children with advice and referral to specialist services if necessary.

It said the move was necessary because many parents could not tell whether their children were overweight.

In its white paper Choosing Health, the government pledged to reintroduce weighing and measuring children.

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