MORE than a third of P1 pupils in Scotland’s most deprived areas are at risk of being overweight or obese – compared to a fifth of youngsters the same age in the most affluent communities.

It comes after new figures showed a large rise in the proportion of students in their first year of primary school who were found to be at risk of being either overweight or obese.

In 2020-21, almost three out of 10 (29.5%) P1 children were found to be at risk of either being overweight or obese – up from 22.7% of youngsters the previous year.

Overall the research, published by Public Health Scotland, found 69.8% of P1 children had a healthy weight, while 0.8% were at risk of being underweight. While fewer children had their height and weight checked in 2020-21 compared to the previous year – with 37% of Primary 1 children measured, compared to more than 70% pre-pandemic – the report made clear that the “degree of change seen in results in 2020-21 cannot be accounted for solely by differences in the size and composition of the dataset”.

It also noted that “marked socioeconomic inequalities” in children’s weight have developed over the past 20 years, saying that these “have widened with the recent changes”.

In 2020-21, the report found that 35.7% of P1 pupils in the most deprived areas were at risk of being either overweight or obese – a rise of 8.4 points on the previous year.

Meanwhile in the least deprived areas, 20.8% of P1 youngsters were at risk of being overweight or obese, with this up by 3.6% on 2019-20.

Just over a fifth (21.1%) of P1 children in the most deprived areas were at risk of obesity, according to the data, compared to 8.4% of their counterparts in the least deprived areas.

Across Scotland as a whole, P1 boys were slightly less likely than girls to have a healthy weight, the report found.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We’re aiming to halve childhood obesity by 2030 and significantly reduce diet-related health inequalities.”