Increasing food prices could see more people in Swindon falling into obesity and malnutrition, health experts have said.

The warning has come as Swindon Borough Council said it was looking to identify the specific reasons why people in the town are more obese than the regional and national average.

But the good news is that the rate of obesity in the borough is coming down.

At a meeting of the borough council’s adults’ health, care and housing overview and scrutiny committee, the authority’s director of public health Steve Maddern told councillors about a new approach his team will be taking to both obesity and smoking reduction.

Dr Maddern said: “The approach is different to before, it’s called a 'whole system approach' for both obesity and smoking reduction now we are looking at Swindon-specific problems, to try and understand the root causes for the rate of obesity in Swindon.

“It’s not enough to take the general point and say it’s because people eat too much and move too little.”

Dr Madden, who recently launched a scheme to get more people to be active in a wide variety of ways said: “We’ll be looking at things like whether it's access to funds, or education or access to physical activity.”

Rate of obesity decreasing

He told the committee that 65 per cent of adults in the borough were overweight or obese, higher than the South West average of 61 per cent or the England average of 63 per cent.

But that figure is coming down. In 2015 it was 67 per cent and it has fallen since lockdown.

He says the growing rate of obesity among children is a worry. Dr Maddern said: “In reception class a quarter of children are obese or overweight, but that goes up to one-third by year six.

“Our focus is on children and their families- that’s the whole system approach.”

Labour councillor Janine Howard asked whether the cost-of-living crisis might drive up rates of excess weight as people buy more processed but cheaper food. Dr Maddern said it might: “When you look at cost increases things like burgers, chips, pies and cheese are relatively static in price, but vegetables, fish and meat have gone up.

“It might seem we see people’s weight increase but they will also be more nutritionally deprived.”

Another Labour councillor Carol Shelley said she is also concerned about some children not eating enough: “In some of the more under-privileged areas I see children who are not overweight but malnourished. This will affect their education and their life chances.”