In 2025
Around one in every five children aged 5 to 14 had obesity

The Regional Directorate of Statistics of Madeira (DREM) today releases the results for the Autonomous Region of Madeira (ARM) from the children's module of the 2025 National Health Survey (INS).

This module was carried out among holders of parental responsibility and had as its main objective the collection of information on general aspects of health status and eating habits of children under 15 years of age, contributing to a more comprehensive and up-to-date characterisation of this population.

In 2025, 87.4% of children resident in the ARM had an assessment of their health status classified as "Very good" or "Good", a value 4.9 percentage points (pp) lower than the national average (92.3%).

In the area of oral health, 84.1% had a "Very good" or "Good" assessment of the condition of their teeth and gums, while 13.5% recorded an assessment of "Fair", "Poor" or "Very poor". Nationally, the percentages were 88.3% and 9.1%, respectively.

The INS results show that 20.7% of children resident in the ARM had health problems that affected their ability to carry out activities considered usual for their age during the 12 months prior to the interview. Nationally, this proportion was 18.9%.

The same survey also collected information on children's height and weight, from which the respective child Body Mass Index (BMI), adjusted by sex and age, was calculated using the WHO growth curves (z-scores). The results show that 54.3% of children aged 5 to 14 had normal weight, while 40.3% had overweight or obesity, more specifically 20.8% with overweight and 19.5% with obesity. This means that approximately one in every 5 children was obese. When compared nationally, 35.5% of children in this age group had overweight or obesity, broken down into 22.6% with overweight and 12.9% with obesity.

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