Forty percent of 10- to 11-year-olds are obese.
This is not correct. NHS England data shows around 23% of 10- to 11-year-old children are obese, and a further 14% overweight. Ms Webb’s office has acknowledged the error, and Hansard has been updated.
Forty percent of 10- to 11-year-olds are obese.
Conservative MP Suzanne Webb told the House of Commons on Tuesday 17 October that 40% of 10- to 11-year-olds are obese.
This is not correct, and Ms Webb’s office told Full Fact she meant to say “overweight or obese”.
Figures from NHS England (formerly NHS Digital) show that some 23.4% of year 6 children were obese in 2021/22, while 14.3% were overweight. This means that 37.7% of 10- to 11-year-old children were obese or overweight when the data was gathered as part of the National Child Measurement Programme.
These were the most recent figures which had been published at the time Ms Webb made her comments, though NHS England has since published new data which shows obesity prevalence in year 6 fell slightly to 22.7% in 2022/23. The proportion of this age group who were overweight also fell, to 13.9%.
Ms Webb’s office told us that her words were in the process of being corrected, and the Hansard record of the debate has since been updated.
Her office also pointed us to previous Parliamentary debates where Ms Webb had cited the 40% figure correctly.
MPs should correct false or misleading claims as soon as possible. While it is not currently possible for MPs who aren't ministers to make official corrections to Hansard, “obvious mistakes” can be removed, which seems to be what has happened in this case.
Image courtesy of the House of Commons
As detailed in our fact check, Suzanne Webb’s office has acknowledged the error, and Hansard has been updated.
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