One in five boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 9 (20.2%) are overweight in Spain and almost 16% suffer from childhood obesity. Although they remain high, both figures have improved since 2019, according to the latest edition of the Aladino study, carried out every four years by the Food Safety and Nutrition Agency (Aesan), part of the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and Nutrition. Agenda 2030. However, this progress has not been uniform. Excess weight – the sum of the prevalence of overweight and obesity – is well established among low-income schoolchildren. No improvement is perceived there.
“This form of inequality is unacceptable for a democracy,” said Minister Pablo Bustinduy, who presented the overview of the results on Wednesday. The gap is particularly wide in terms of obesity: with a prevalence of 23.6% among boys and girls whose families have an income of less than 18,000 euros compared to 10.9%, or less than half, among those whose annual income is more than 30,000 euros.
Socio-economic issues are once again confirmed as one of the “main determinants explaining this health risk”, according to Social Rights. The difference in normal weight is 18 points: only half of children from vulnerable families have a healthy weight (50.7%) compared to 68.2% of the least poor boys and girls. “Contrary to what one might believe or think, we are not faced with an individual problem, but rather with a series of contextual factors linked to precariousness, poverty or lack of time that impact essential issues such as eating habits, quality of sleep or a sedentary lifestyle. All of this marks the development of boys and girls”, stressed Bustinduy.
The difference in incidence can be explained by questions that are easy to measure: how much fruit and vegetables children eat, what they eat for breakfast, how many soft drinks they drink, whether or not they do extracurricular activities or how much time they spend in front of screens. The Aladino study measured all these parameters through complementary surveys among the families of the 12,678 schoolchildren from 296 schools throughout Spain who were weighed and measured.
More than half of the children with the most economic comfort eat a fruit a day; a percentage that falls to 36% among the poorest families. With vegetables, the gap is ten points, or 19.2% against 29.5%. But the greatest inequality is found in the consumption of soft drinks with sugar three or more times a week: it is eight times higher among schoolchildren from the most disadvantaged families (0.9% against 7.8%).
On the other hand, extracurricular activities that involve movement are also more frequent among children with a higher family income (the distance is 20 points), while the time they spend in front of screens increases inversely. The percentage of low-income schoolchildren who spend at least two hours a day looking at their mobile phone, computer or television is twice as high as that of those who grow up in households earning more than 30,000 euros per year (22.8% compared to 41.4%). This implies, on the one hand, a more sedentary lifestyle; and, on the other, greater exposure to advertising, according to the Secretary of State for Consumption and Games, Andrés Barragán.
The study is part of the Childhood Obesity Surveillance Tools (COSI) of the European Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) and has been carried out in Spain since 2011 by the Observatory of Studies on Nutrition and Obesity of Aesan. The WHO considers obesity as one of the main public health problems – and not individual – which, together with overweight, is associated with numerous health problems. In adults and also in childhood. In this case, only boys and girls from 6 to 9 years old are measured because, from older ages, the figures can be modified by different development rates and, therefore, not be as comparable. Sizing the problem at this stage also allows for early intervention, according to Social Rights.
Pending measures
The 2023 edition, as it is still a preview of the results, does not allow comparing Spain with other countries; an exercise that can be done with the previous update of 2019. Then, Spain ranked third in excess weight (39%), only behind Cyprus and Greece; and fourth in obesity.
The results are “fundamental for the deployment of public policies that improve the habits” of minors, taking into account “the very significant differences by income and the impact on the health of boys and girls,” they argue in Social Rights.
The ministry is preparing a royal decree on healthy school canteens to “compensate for possible lack of nutrients that are not taken at home.” Minister Pablo Bustinduy also expressed his intention to recover the decree prohibiting advertising for unhealthy products aimed at minors, which declined in the last legislature due to the opposition of the Ministry of Agriculture to the initiative promoted by the former Minister of Consumer Affairs, Alberto Garzón.
“The self-regulation model of the food industry has proven insufficient in the face of a challenge like this, ambitious measures must be adopted,” Bustinduy stressed during the presentation of the study, although no date has yet been set for these changes.
