Overweight children ... the numbers are increasing, endangering their health. Source: ThinkStock
SINGLE parents are far more likely to have fat kids: that's the shock new finding of a national snapshot that measures children's health and learning.
Being raised by a solo parent is the biggest risk factor for obesity, and experts are blaming it on low incomes, inability to pay for participation in organised sport and the unaffordability of healthy food.
There are also more overweight and obese girls than boys, says the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare which has examined 15 key measures of child health and learning.
Almost one in four nine year olds are overweight and obese and by the time they are 14, 27 per cent of teens are overweight or obese.
Girls are facing a harder struggle with their weight with the figures showing while 25 per cent of boys aged under 15 are overweight or obese, 27 per cent of girls are fat.
Having a sole parent, a low income family and living outside a major city are also risk factors for childhood obesity.
The biggest gulf was between children in lone parent families and those in couple families.
More than 35 per cent of children with a lone parent were overweight or obese, compared with 24 per cent of kids those living in couple families.
The National Council of Single Mothers and their Children says one of the key factors driving obesity in these families is the children don't take part in organised sport because they can't afford it.
"Annual sporting fees are several hundred dollars and then you need footwear and shin guards and petrol to get the kids to training and games," NCSMC spokeswoman Terese Edwards said.
"Food is also a big issue," she said.
A study released earlier this year found a low income family would have to spend half its weekly wage to eat the healthy diet of lean meat, fruit, vegetables recommended in official national dietary guidelines.
Study author Professor Sharon Friel found eating healthy costs up to 30 per cent more than a diet high in carbohydrate, sugar and fat
Childhood obesity expert Sydney University Professor Louise Baur says obesity in children and adolescents is more common in people from disadvantaged backgrounds and lower income.
"So, part of the link with single parent households could be the link to lower income as well," she says.
These families are less likely to live close to public transport, parklands, green space and shops and "there is also a link between social stress and obesity and obesity-conducive risk factors," she says.
It was challenging enough for a couple family to get their kids to eat breakfast, eat without the TV, play outside, limit screen time and play outside for an hour a day and even harder for a single parent, she says.
The indicators of children's wellbeing is otherwise generally good news with a dramatic improvement in childhood literacy.
More than 96 per cent of Year 5 students now read at or above the national minimum standards, up from 91 per cent in 2008.
More than 93 per cent of Year 5 students are achieving at or above the national minimum standards for numeracy, up from 92.7 per cent in 2008.
Deaths from childhood injuries are stable at around 5 deaths per 100,000 children.
Infant deaths are continuing to decline from 4.7 to 3.3 per cent of live births.
And 94 per cent of all children are attended an early education program before they start school in 2013 up from 86 per cent in 2012.
The rate of births to teenage mothers has plunged from 17.3 per cent in 2006 to 15.4 per cent in 2011 with the rates highest in regional and remote areas of Australia.
One in eight mothers smoked during their first 20 weeks of pregnancy but the rate was much higher among mothers aged less than 20 (35.7 per cent) and indigenous women (48%).
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