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A quarter of reception year pupils are overweight or obese

Wed, 27 Jun 2018

Over a quarter of reception year pupils in the Island's primary schools are overweight or obese.

The Department of Education, Sport and Culture's most recent figures, from the 2016-17 academic year, show 16.3% of reception year pupils were overweight while a further 8.8% were classed as obese.

The combined figures means 25.1% of the 864 children fell into one of the two categories.

Braddan and Rushen Schools were the only schools with fewer than 15% of their pupils classed as overweight or obese, while five schools had more than 40% of its reception class in the overweight or obese categories.

Children's height and weight are measures during reception year and the data is used to calculate Body Mass Index.

The rate of overweight and obese pupils is slightly higher on the Isle of Man than in England, where the rate is 22.6%.

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