Health, News

Adult smoking rates decrease but obesity rates in 10 to 11-year-olds up in Nottingham

By Lauren Monaghan, Junior Local Democracy Reporter

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A health programme in Nottingham has found smoking is falling but obesity in 10-to-11-year-olds is now nearly seven per cent above England’s average.

This is according to new figures from the city’s Joint Local Health and Wellbeing Strategy, which was discussed at Nottingham City Council’s Health and Wellbeing Board on Wednesday (May 28).

The strategy ran from 2022 to 2025 and was delivered by a range of organisations, including the council, education leaders, and health partners.

Four ‘priority’ programmes made up the strategy, focusing on strengthening support for people experiencing ‘extreme’ health inequalities, improving access to healthy food and activity, supporting people quitting smoking, and reducing financial burdens.

In 2022, 20.9 per cent of Nottingham adults were smokers. This then dropped to 18.2 per cent.

Since the strategy’s launch, more than 2,600 people in Nottingham have quit smoking, along with extra targeted support for pregnant women and people with serious mental illness.

Nottingham University Hospital’s (NUH) maternity service has had a 55 per cent increase in pregnant women engaging with quitting smoking compared to the previous year.

The maternity stop smoking team saw 1,417 patients between April 2023 and April 2025, with 463 saying they are still non-smokers after four weeks.

The NUH inpatient team also saw 6,869 patients between April 2023 and April 2025, with 392 inpatients reaching the four-week quit date.

Enforcement efforts of Trading Standards and the police have meant over 22,800 illicit vapes and 5,500 packs of illegal tobacco have been seized.

The joint health project has also seen some decreases in childhood obesity, but this has increased for year six children in Nottingham.

At the start of the strategy, 25.2 per cent of reception age children were overweight or obese. This decreased to 23.7 per cent in 2023/24.

But for year six children, 40.8 per cent were overweight or obese at the start of the strategy, increasing to 42.5 per cent in 2023/24.

Documents state this is “significantly higher” than the England average prevalence of 35.8 per cent.

Collaborative work has promoted healthier eating habits and physical activity in school children.

During the strategy, 37 Nottingham schools signed up to the Achieve Well School awards program to improve their health and wellbeing provision.

Also, 31 schools and 5,467 students completed a health and wellbeing survey to give insight into health perspectives and behaviours.

The first Healthy Child Conference was attended by 68 city schools, focusing on free school meals, picky eaters and stopping smoking and vaping, with six schools taking to teaching maths and English is ‘active’ ways.

Presenting the figures and update report, Rich Brady, Director of Strategy and Partnership, Nottingham City Place-Based Partnership, said: “We have been able to improve health and wellbeing outcomes across all the programs, but it’s generally where there’s targeted efforts.”

Sally Olohan, a representative of Nottingham University, asked: “What do you think we should be most proud of? What has been the greatest impact and sustainable impact for Nottingham City?”

Mr Brady responded: “I’m proud of the programme leaders because what they do is really difficult, trying to keep the gaze and attention of people.

“We have laid a foundation of a strategy, I don’t want to paint this as a real success story. I think it will be a success story, but I don’t think we’re there yet.”

Lucy Hubber, Director of Public Health at the council, added: “I do think there are some things we can point to. Some of it is how we’ve used our resources to think differently about stuff we might have done ordinarily. Things like [work with and within schools].

“The reason that we’ve done a three-year strategy is because we want to get stuff going. These are the big oil tankers that are very difficult to turn and we have begun to turn them- that’s a huge success story.

“We are turning the tide on smoking rates, that is so difficult to do and we know we’re doing it, not in a series of nice pilot programmes but we’ve done it in a sustainable way that will maintain that.”

The strategy will continue under a refreshed version from 2025 to 2028.