National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) annual report: academic year 2025 to 2026, England
This report presents the latest data from the NCMP for children in reception and year 6.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
The National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) annual report presents the new year of NCMP data for 2025 to 2026 and examines the patterns and trends in prevalence for the following body mass index (BMI) categories for children in reception (aged 4 to 5 years) and year 6 (aged 10 to 11 years):
- obesity
- severe obesity
- overweight
- healthy weight
- underweight
Data is presented for the following demographic and socioeconomic groups:
- sex
- ethnic group
- level of deprivation
- regions and local authority areas in England
Accompanying this publication are the:
- NCMP annual report: methodology, which contains information on data collection and validation, data quality, calculation of prevalence and confidence intervals, statistical testing, and the method used for BMI classification
- NCMP annual report: data quality statement, which aims to provide users with an evidence-based assessment of quality of the statistical output included in this annual report
The obesity, physical activity and nutrition profile on Fingertips has been updated and displays data from the NCMP showing prevalence for each BMI category for the following geographic areas:
- upper and lower-tier local authorities
- integrated care boards (ICBs)
- regions
- England
Inequalities in child obesity prevalence are displayed by sex, deprivation quintile and ethnic group for England, regions and local authority areas.
The ‘Child BMI categories small area data’ topic in the obesity, physical activity and nutrition profile displays trend data on the prevalence of overweight (including obesity) and obesity for middle super output areas (MSOAs) and electoral wards, with comparator data for local authorities and England.
This update also includes the publication of the national and regional patterns and trends in child obesity data slide packs, showing the 2025 to 2026 NCMP data, available in the ‘Reports’ data view of the obesity, physical activity and nutrition profile.