The National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) measures the height and weight of over one-million children in Reception (age 4-5 years) and Year 6 (age 10-11 years) each year in primary schools in England.

  • The NCMP is an excellent source of surveillance data which helps increase understanding of the patterns and trends in underweight, healthy weight, overweight, and obesity among the child population.
  • To help identify pockets of high child obesity prevalence within local authorities, data has been produced for small areas. However, this has been aggregated for multiple years.
  • School closures in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, meant that in 2019/20 the number of children measured was around 75% of previous years. Analysis by NHS Digital shows that national and regional level data is reliable and comparable to previous years. However, the data at local authority level and below is not as robust.
  • Full data and further information can be found on the Fingertips website.

The maps below show small area data for Suffolk.

  • Data is pooled for 2019/20 – 2021/22.
  • The grey arrows on the top left of the map enable you to move between different measures.
  • When you click on an area on the map, a pop up box appears and it allows you to view:
    • The name and code for the Electoral Division selected
    • Click the small arrow near the top right of the pop up to view the the NCMP data, specifically:
    • The name and code small area selected
    • The percentage figure (for example the percentage of children overweight in the area) (Value)
    • Upper (Upper_CI) and lower (Lower_CI) confidence intervals for the percentage value
    • The number of people counted within the indicator (for example the total number of children measured as overweight) and the denominator (total children measured)
    • Whether the area is statistically significantly better, similar, or worse for the measure selected compared to the wider local authority area (LA_compare), or England (En_compare)
    • Where the value is 0 and no comparison is available, this means the data are suppressed for disclosure control reasons.