{"id":80143,"date":"2025-10-17T07:21:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T07:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/80143\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T07:21:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T07:21:08","slug":"underweight-and-obese-children-cost-nhs-same-oxford-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/80143\/","title":{"rendered":"Underweight and obese children cost NHS same, Oxford study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This work suggests we may have been looking at this the wrong way,&#8221; the study&#8217;s lead author, Dr Olu Onyimadu, said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s not just obesity that drives costs. Underweight children may need comparable support and generate similar costs per capita to the NHS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We need to think about the full spectrum of unhealthy weight when planning services.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The study is the first of its kind and used NHS electronic health records from more than 260,000 children aged between two and 15 across England.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It found healthcare costs rose sharply after a child&#8217;s weight was formally recorded, with the largest increase in those who were found to be underweight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Four and five-year-olds with severe obesity had the highest excess costs, whilst girls with severe obesity cost more than boys, the study found.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Professor Stavros Petrou, who co-authored the study, said the findings &#8220;give commissioners and practices the evidence they need to make the case for weight-management services&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Early intervention across the weight spectrum could generate substantial savings while improving children&#8217;s health,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;This work suggests we may have been looking at this the wrong way,&#8221; the study&#8217;s lead author, Dr&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":["post-80143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}