Obesity among adolescents in Ireland has risen 15-fold over the past three decades, according to a stark new study. It increased from 0.5 per cent in 1990 to 8 per cent in 2020 among those aged 13 to 18.
It has emerged as an economic issue, according to the research, with a substantially higher proportion of adolescents from more socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds displaying a BMI above the healthy range in 2020 compared with previous decades.
Forty-one per cent of children of semi-skilled and unskilled workers were overweight or obese, making them nearly three times more likely to have adolescent weight issues than children of professional, managerial and technical workers, at 15 per cent, in 2020.
The study, led by researchers from the UCD Institute of
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