One in four children in Ireland is believed to be considered overweight or obese.
An experienced distributor of school uniforms to retailers throughout Ireland has revealed that requests have been made for school trousers with waist sizes of up to 54 inches ahead of the coming school year.
Jonathan Eakin of Hunter Schoolwear in Cavan, who have been distributing school uniforms to retailers in Ireland for four decades, said that requests had been made for trousers with 52-inch and 54-inch waists for secondary school students.
Speaking on Today with Sean O’Rourke on RTÉ Radio One, Eakin said that he had noticed an increase in demand for oversized clothing in primary schools in particular in the last ten years.
“Probably 10 years ago we brought in a specialised elastic waist pant for primary school kids,” Eakin said.
“At the time we started with a 28-inch waist and did it up to a 36-inch waist but we now do it up to 46-inch waist,” he added.
Eakin told O’Rourke that extra stocks of trousers with a 50-inch waist (32-inch leg) had been ordered after they ran out last year and that primary school children wearing adult-sized clothing is now a common occurrence.
“Adult sizes, like small, medium large, they’re all being sold into primary school; that’s adult sizing. You can imagine now a 10-year old boy wearing a large adult sweatshirt.”
Louise Reynolds, Registered Dietician and Communications Manager with the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute, said that a lack of dietitians was a huge problem in Ireland and that obese and overweight children are putting themselves at risk of suffering serious health issues later in life.
Reynolds pointed to dangers such as “high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, increased risk of heart problems, bone and joint problems because of physically carrying the extra weight and risk of diabetes as well”.
“We know that diabetes is a huge problem and type 2 diabetes, which, when I studied nutrition, was called adult-onset diabetes, now is occurring in primary school children,” Reynolds added.
You can listen to the conversation in full here.
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