The Child Measurement Programme for Wales measures the height and weight of children in Reception class.
We want to learn how children in Wales are growing so that NHS Wales can better plan and deliver health services.
Public Health Wales is responsible for the coordination of the Child Measurement Programme and every health board across Wales is taking part in the programme.
Latest Results
This report summarises population level data of the key findings of the Child Measurement Programme (CMP) for the 2023/24 academic year for the purposes of surveillance.
- All children aged 4-5 years attending reception class and residing in Wales were offered routine height and weight measurements by school nursing teams. These data are reported Nationally to facilitate surveillance.
- For Wales overall, there was a return to pre-pandemic participation with 93.4% of children being weighed and measured this year.
- In Wales as a whole, the proportion of children with a healthy weight was 73.5%, which is a slightly lower proportion compared to last year (74.3%) but statistically significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels (72.4%).
- In Wales as a whole, the proportion of children with overweight or with obesity was 13.7% and 11.8% respectively.
- The proportion of children with obesity in Wales was higher than that reported for England and for Scotland.
- Children residing in the most deprived ‘deprivation fifth’ were more likely to be living with overweight or obesity compared with the least deprived fifth, next least deprived fifth, middle deprived fifth and next most deprived fifth.
- Boys were statistically significantly more likely to be underweight compared to girls with the proportion of boys living with underweight at 1.3% compared to 0.6% for girls.
- This year’s results showed a statistically significant difference between rural and urban areas.
- The proportion of children in rural areas who were living with overweight or obesity was 26.8% compared to 25.0% in urban areas.