{
  "abstract": "Background Childhood obesity is a global public health challenge. Inequalities in child obesity have increased in recent years, exacerbated by the pandemic. Over the same period, child poverty has also risen but its contribution to trends in childhood obesity is unclear. We aimed to assess the extent to which changes in child poverty explain local trends in obesity among young children.Methods We carried out a longitudinal ecological analysis of 296 lower-tier local authorities in England from 2015 to 2024. We linked National Child Measurement Programme data on obesity in reception-age children (4–5 years) with Department for Work and Pensions data on children in low-income families. Data for 2021 were excluded due to poor quality during the pandemic. We used a fixed-effects regression model adjusting for unobserved time-invariant confounders at the local level to estimate the association between child poverty and obesity, accounting for employment rates and ethnic composition.Results Between 2015 and 2024, a one-percentage-point increase in the rate of child poverty was associated with an additional 66 obese children per 100,000 (95% CI 37 to 95), equivalent to around 5,051 additional children over the study period. We estimate that 37.4% (95% CI 17.7 to 57) of the rise in obesity over this period was attributable to increasing poverty. Findings were consistent across sensitivity analyses using absolute poverty and pre-pandemic data.Conclusion Rising child poverty explained over a third of the increase in childhood obesity in England over the last decade. Child poverty is an easily modifiable exposure and should be a central target for obesity prevention policy. Reforms such as reversing the two-child benefit cap, expanding universal free school meals, and strengthening early-years support services should be national priorities to address England’s childhood obesity crisis.",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Public Health, Policy & Systems, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Rohan Singh"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Public Health, Policy & Systems, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Davara Bennett"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Public Health, Policy & Systems, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK"
      ],
      "name": "David Taylor-Robinson"
    }
  ],
  "title": "P01-5 Child poverty and childhood obesity in England: a longitudinal ecological analysis at the local level, 2015-2024",
  "uid": "525f3410-bc26-5c09-a8ef-1c00e95d7e85"
}