15th Jun 2020 - 09:44
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Abstract
A child health expert has warned that school closures are increasing the risk of childhood obesity, with the lack of exercise have potentially devastating long-term consequences when one in five pupils are already excessively overweight.
“We need to get kids back to school as soon as we can for their health. Everybody in the nutritional world is concerned,” Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health told TV’s Good Morning Britain yesterday (June 14th).
He said that most of the 10m pupils from Reception to Year 10 will be off school for at least six months – from March to September – because of the pandemic.
He said the focus was rightly on the risks of transmission of Covid-19, but added: “The risk-balance equation for children is about the risks of not being in school and poor mental health, poor sleep and potentially lack of exercise and obesity.”
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