School children of Year 6 age who live in Bishops Nympton are in the top ten of the country . . .  when it comes to being overweight that is!

According to data published by Public Health England an incredible 50% of Year 6 school children who live in Bishops Nympton were considered to be overweight – almost 30% were considered to be obese. This puts Bishops Nympton in eighth place in terms of being overweight, with the Town and Pier ward of Dover in first place, with just over 56% of Year 6 children classified as being overweight.

In bottom place (or first place from a health perspective!) was the ward of North in Oxford with less than 8% of Year 6 children being classified as overweight. That’s an extraordinary difference.

South Molton comes out reasonably well. But none of these figures are good, and it shows how many health problems (e.g. Type II diabetes) will come to the fore in a generation’s time – or possibly even sooner.

It’s probably quite difficult for you to see these graphs in detail, particularly on a mobile phone, but in both cases Bishops Nympton is the longest bar, South Molton is in green, and England, North Devon and Devon are in red.  On both graphs the scales run from 0% to 50%.

Instow and Lynton and Lynmouth aren’t shown on the “Overweight” graph because their sample sizes were too small. The former plus Marwood and Georgeham and Mortehoe aren’t shown on the “Obesity” graph for the same reason.

All this data, plus explanatory comments, can be found on the Public Health England website here.