Policy context

Physical health is a basic building block for children and young people’s current wellbeing and future life outcomes. Being physically healthy includes being physically active, having a good diet and being in the healthy weight range.

During childhood and adolescence, children and young people form health-related attitudes and behaviours that can stay with them for life, making it a critical time to support positive and deter negative health practices.¹

Based on measured data from the 2017–18 National Health Survey, the majority of children aged 5–14 (67% or an estimated 2 million) were a normal weight and around 1 in 4 (24% or an estimated 746,000) were overweight or obese. Almost 1 in 13 (7.7%) children aged 5–14 were obese.²