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1. Introduction

Annex B has been produced as an alternative way to interpret the longitudinal data, analysed for children in year 6 (aged 10 to 11 years) moving from reception (aged 4 to 5 years). Data used in annex B is available to download in accessible data tables from the gov.uk website.

The charts in this report are interactive. Users can hover over the charts to see more details and click the legend to select and de-select weight categories. More detail on how to interpret and use the charts is described in annex A. No commentary is provided and no significance testing has been applied.

2. Changes in weight status

Figure 1a shows the change in child weight status to year 6 from reception, the thickness of the line linking one weight category to another represents the number of children moving between the weight categories. Only lines where 3% or more of children moved out of a weight category in reception are shown on the chart. Figure 1b presents the same data as Figure 1a as a bar chart for direct comparison (all groups are shown).

Figure 1a: Changes in child weight status in year 6 aged 10 to 11 years from reception aged 4 to 5 years

Movements below 3% are excluded from figure 1a and this has meant that not all movements into underweight from a different category are shown. Figure 1b, below, shows all movement between BMI groups regardless of size.

Figure 1b: Changes in child weight status in year 6 aged 10 to 11 years from reception aged 4 to 5 years

The rest of annex B looks at how these patterns in weight change vary between different demographic groups. Bar charts are used in the remainder of annex B as they make it easier to compare movements between groups, e.g. between boys and girls, than comparing two Sankey diagrams (flow diagram as shown in figure 1a). However, they do not show the number of children in different weight categories so comparisons back to figure 1a are useful as a reminder that the majority of children are in the healthy weight category followed by the overweight and obesity excluding severe obesity categories. The severe obesity and underweight categories contain the smallest number of children.

3. Changes in weight status by sex

The patterns of change in weight categories in year 6 from reception are different between boys and girls, figure 2 shows the changes in child weight status by sex compared with all children in this analysis.

Figure 2: Changes in child weight status in year 6 aged 10 to 11 years from reception aged 4 to 5 years, by sex

4. Changes in weight status by ethnic group

There are known disparities in weight status by ethnicity, with children from black and some Asian ethnic groups having higher prevalence of obesity than children of white British ethnicity. Data is presented here for the 6 ethnic groups of Bangladeshi, black African, black Caribbean, Indian, Pakistani and white British children.

Figure 3 shows how patterns of change between weight categories differ by ethnic group.

Figure 3: Changes in child weight status in year 6 aged 10 to 11 years from reception aged 4 to 5 years, by ethnic group

5. Changes in weight status by deprivation

There is a strong correlation between weight status and deprivation, with children living in the more deprived areas experiencing a higher prevalence of obesity. Data is presented using the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), a measure of relative deprivation for small areas. The small areas are divided according to their deprivation rank into 5 equal groups (quintiles), ranging from the most deprived (quintile 1) to the least deprived (quintile 5).

Figure 4 shows how patterns of change between weight categories differ by deprivation group.

Figure 4: Changes in child weight status in year 6 aged 10 to 11 years from reception aged 4 to 5 years, by deprivation quintile

6. Changes in weight status by region of residence

Figure 5 shows analysis that uses English region of residence when a child was in reception.

Figure 5: Changes in child weight status in year 6 aged 10 to 11 years from reception aged 4 to 5 years, by region of child residence