The Isle of Wight NHS Trust’s School Nursing Team has completed the 8th year of data collection for the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) by recording the height and weight of all reception and Year 6 children. With continued support from Island parents the national target of 85% participation has once again be exceeded.
School nursing lead at Isle of Wight NHS Trust, Rachel Amos said:
“The School Nurse team would like to thank everyone for supporting this important survey. The excellent participation rate shows just how much interest there is amongst Island parents in the health of their children.”
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The NCMP was set up in 2005 by the Department of Health to provide national-level data on children’s growth. Nationally all data collected is sent anonymously to the Department of Health who use the Body Mass index (BMI) calculated from the measurements to target relevant services to specific areas of the country.
In 2013 Child and Maternal Health Observatory (ChiMat) produced statistics from the NCMP results stating that children on the Isle of Wight have average levels of obesity:
· 10.4% of children aged 4-5 years and 18.0% of children aged 10-11 years are classified as obese.
· 51.7% of children participate in at least three hours of sport a week which is worse than the England average.
Rachel continued:
“This year, working closely with the Island’s Public Health team, we are able to send parents a letter with their child’s results. These results will include the date they were measured, the child’s height and weight and a calculated BMI centile. There will be an explanation of whether this means their child is under weight, a healthy weight, overweight or very overweight for their age, sex and height. Our discussions with parents show that they find this information very useful – for some it is reassuring and for others it acts as a call to action.”
It is important to highlight that in a survey of this nature whilst the BMI data is useful to show national trends, individually it may produce some unexpected results. The BMI ranges try to account for the fact that children are constantly growing but occasionally an anomaly will occur and a child who looks to be in proportion will record a BMI outside the ‘healthy range’ If any parent receives a letter that puts their child into a different range to the one they were expecting or they have a concern regarding their child’s growth, the School Nursing Team will be happy to look at individual data and offer any support or advice. Contact details of the School Nurse Team can be obtained from the child’s school.
Simon Bryant, consultant of public health said:
“The NCMP provides a great opportunity for parents to understand the weight of their children and help them support their children to have a healthy weight which will help to avoid obesity-related health problems later in life such as diabetes and heart disease.”
Advice for parents who are worried about their child’s weight can be found on the NHS Choices website at www.iow.nhs.uk/change4life.
Isle of Wight NHS Trust’s School Nursing service is commissioned and funded by Isle of Wight Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The Public Health Team on the Isle of Wight have formally been part of Isle of Wight Council since April 2013.
