Tracking the weight of children has gone on for more than a dozen years, and the trend had previously been stable.
But the latest Guernsey Child Measurement Programme report, which measures the height and weight of pupils in school Years 1 and 5, aged five or six and nine or 10, has given health officials cause for concern.
Of Year 1 children measured this year, 21.2% – around one in five – were found to have unhealthy levels of excess weight, split evenly between 10.6% classed as overweight, and 10.6% as obese. That is the highest single-year figure recorded for the age group since the programme began in 2013.
More significantly, Public Health said there was now ‘increasing evidence that the level of excess weight among children in Year 1 is rising’ – a change from earlier years, when the data had shown no clear direction either way.
To smooth out year-to-year fluctuation, the report tracks three-year averages, and on that measure the proportion of Year 1 children carrying excess weight has climbed to 19.6%, the highest in the series, with obesity alone reaching 9.9%, also a record.
The report stops short of identifying a single cause, and notes that Body Mass Index, on which the classifications are based, is a population-level tool rather than a direct measure of body fat. But the direction of travel among the island’s five- and six-year-olds is the clearest signal in this year’s figures.
Despite the rise, the great majority of the youngest children remain at a healthy weight – 78.0% of Year 1 pupils were classed as such in 2026.
Some 94% of eligible children took part – the highest level since 2020 and in line with the strongest pre-pandemic years. The programme uses opt-out consent, and measurements were carried out in schools between January and March.
The measurement programme exists to allow population-level surveillance of children’s weight rather than to assess individuals, and the report frames its findings in terms of ‘weight status’ across the school population.
The same report found that excess weight remains markedly more common among older primary pupils, with close to one in three of Year 5 children carrying excess weight, and identified a socio-economic divide in the figures.
Public Health said it would continue to monitor the trend in the youngest age group closely in future rounds.
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