Primary pupils face annual obesity check

The Labour government has decreed that Primary school children are to be weighed annually, and their parents will be told if they are obese, after the Government overuled its own public health officials.

Despite opposition by nurses, who fear that children could be stigmatised, the Government will weigh all those aged four to ten in the next academic year to help to prepare a national obesity map.

Parents of obese children can expect a letter telling them that their child faces long-term health problems unless action is taking to improve diet and lifestyle.

A Department of Health spokesman said that childhood obesity was an issue that had to be taken very seriously.

Caroline Flint, the Public Health Minister, has said that parents were the “first and foremost” influence on children’s health and had a key role to play.

Obesity has doubled in six-year-olds in the past ten years.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2191563,00.html

A classic "New Labour" tactic- Labour's centralist dictatory arrogance to overule the experts and further extend the nanny state.