ACTGHS BMI obese, children
Please note that these indicators are not currently up to date and will be replaced shortly with dashboards. In the meantime the most currently available data is available at https://www.data.act.gov.au or contact healthinfo@act.gov.au
Commentary
Body Mass Index (BMI) is a simple index of weight-for-height that is commonly used to classify underweight, healthy weight, overweight and obesity.
BMI for children are categorised as underweight, healthy weight, overweight or obese according to the international cut-offs for children developed by the International Obesity Taskforce.
10.2% of respondents to the 2021 ACT General Health Survey aged 5-17 years were classified as being obese. There was no significant difference between males and females in 2021 (males: 10.6%; females: 9.8%).
BMI is based on self-reported height and weight. To calculate BMI, weight in kilograms was divided by the square of height in metres.
For the purpose of reporting the ACT General Health Survey data on HealthStats, if the 95% confidence intervals of the estimates do not overlap, they are considered to be significantly different.
Note: The indicator shows self-reported data collected through Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI). Estimates were weighted to adjust for differences in the probability of selection among respondents and were benchmarked to the estimated residential population using the latest available Australian Bureau of Statistics population estimates.
Data for BMI are not collected every third year (i.e. 2019 and 2022).
Responses for children aged 5-15 years were provided by the parent/carer who knows the most about the child's health. Persons includes male, female, other and refused sex respondents and may not always add to the sum of male and female.
The following estimates have a relative standard error between 25% and 50% and should be used with caution:
- 2013/14: females
- 2015/16 and 2018: males and females.
Statistically significant differences are difficult to detect for smaller jurisdictions such as the Australian Capital Territory. Sometimes, even large apparent differences may not be statistically significant. This is particularly the case in breakdowns of small populations because the small sample size means that there is not enough power to identify even large differences as statistically significant.
Chart
Proportion of children aged 5 to 17 years whose Body Mass Index was overweight, ACT General Health Survey, 2011-2021
Data
To access the data, select "View source data" link at the bottom of the visualisation. This link will open up a data table that you can download.
Codes and sources
Q. How tall are you without shoes?
Q. How much do you weight without clothes or shoes?
Don't know and refused responses were excluded from analysis.
A copy of the ACT General Health Survey questionnaires can be found in Data collections.