Canada

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Signage marks the Statistics Canada offices in Ottawa on July 21, 2010. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Statistics Canada says almost a third of Canadian children are either overweight or obese.

It says data from a Canadian Health Measures Survey from 2009 to 2011 show that 31.5 per cent of children aged five to 17, an estimated 1.6 million individuals, are overweight.

It says the prevalence of obesity was higher for boys, especially in the five to 11 age group.

For children overall, 15.1 per cent of boys were obese compared with eight per cent of girls.

But in the five to 11 group, the prevalence of obesity among boys was more than three times higher than for girls, 19.5 per cent compared with 6.3 per cent.

The survey says the estimates of obesity among children have not changed in recent years.