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London doctors are failing to identify overweight children and could be increasing the risk of serious illness, an obesity expert warned today.
Almost 200 GPs failed to turn up for specialist training in a new method of measuring child growth designed to identify babies who are overweight and fast-track them into special diet programmes.
Tam Fry, from the National Obesity Forum, has made an official complaint to the Royal College of General Practitioners.
The Government's Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition ordered GPs to get extra training in using new charts to identify child growth patterns. More than 200 in Westminster were offered training but only 11 turned up to the sessions last week.
Mr Fry said: "I am disappointed with GPs and I am appalled they had this reaction. When it comes to children, which should be everyone's priority, there is no interest whatsoever.
"It is possible that children who should be referred for further medical attention will not be referred, with perhaps significant consequences."
The Department of Health said new child growth charts should be used to measure all newborns from this May, but many primary care trusts have not introduced them.
The new charts are based on the weight of healthy breast-fed infants. Previous growth charts were based on data from breast and formula-fed children and so do not reflect normal weight fluctuations of breast-fed babies in the first few weeks.
Professor Terence Stephenson, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said the new charts are "the most up-to-date for UK children today and all health professionals should be familiar with them".
Dr Margaret Guy, director of public health for NHS Westminster, said: "All training offered to independent healthcare professionals is voluntary. We take very seriously our public health agenda to tackle the rising levels of childhood obesity."
Reader views (3)
Usual stuff here - pressure group for a given thing saying the world will be a worse place if their given thing isn't given more prominence. There'll be another like it tomorrow, or next week, that'll say exactly the same thing, just with a different heading.
If anything, they do their 'given thing' a disservice with such overly stressed 'concerns'. Planting it amongst the rest of clamouring focus groups, they are in real danger of hiding their tree in a forest.
- Rogan, Irving
How much notice were the Doctors given, and when was the training? - presumably it was less than a week and taking place during regular surgery hours, so the Doctors could only attend by cancelling their consultations for that day, or if it was out-of-hours they would have had to re-arrange their social lives at short notice.
- Jim, London
What sort of training do you need to spot a fat kid? I see them every day and I am not a doctor or had "specialist training". Has this country gone mad?
- Fanta, London UK
