Almost one in four children are overweight or obese by the age of three, a UK-wide survey reveals today.
The study, the biggest of its kind, measured the height and weight of 14,000 children aged three. Preliminary results reveal that 18% were overweight and a further 5% obese.
The head of the research, Professor Carol Dezateux, said the findings were "of great public health concern".
The government has made cutting childhood obesity a priority after research showed levels had trebled since the 1980s. It is committed to improving diet and boosting physical activity to halt the year-on-year rise in child obesity by 2010.
Today's study found children in Northern Ireland and Wales were more likely to be overweight or obese than those living in England and Scotland. But those in less advantaged areas of England and Scotland were slightly more likely to be overweight or obese than those living in more advantaged areas.
There were marked differences between ethnic groups. Only 9% of Indian children were overweight or obese compared with 23% of white and 33% of black caribbean children. Boys and girls were equally likely to be overweight.
The research was carried out using data from the millennium cohort study, which is tracking children born in the UK from 2000-02. Researchers were drawn from the Institute of Child Health at University College London and the Institute of Education, University of London.
Carol Dezateux, Professor of Paediatric Epidemiology at the Institute of Child Health, who led the team carrying out the analyses, said the findings would help to understand the origins of childhood obesity.
"That almost one quarter of three-year-olds living in the UK are obese or overweight is of great public health concern," she said.
"These figures augment data from other recent smaller or more local UK surveys by providing unique information on the geographic and ethnic variation in childhood overweight and obesity. These findings will assist government in tackling childhood obesity by helping to inform public health policy."
