 Healthy eating advice would be offered to those with a problem |
An obesity test for every five-year-old in Scotland is being planned by ministers, it has been confirmed. The Scottish Executive wants youngsters to be weighed and measured when they start primary school.
Under the plan, healthy eating advice would be given to children and families who think they have a weight problem.
An executive spokesman said: "We would expect these recommendations to be fully implemented by 2008 - they are already being taken forward."
The proposals are contained in an executive report on children's health, which said it would be impractical to give every child a full physical examination.
The most recent figures suggested that 20% of children aged three-and-a-half were overweight, 8.6% were obese and 4% were severely obese.
More than a third of 12-year-olds were overweight in the 2004/05 school year, while 19.4% were obese and 11.2% were classed as severely obese.
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