In a bid to combat this over the past few years, schools have been weighing children, monitoring their Body max Indexes (BMI), and sending letters to the parents of children who are overweight and asking them to monitor their diet and exercise regimes.
However these letters have since been accused of a) being too complicated for parents to understand, and b) fat-shaming and bullying in tone.
As a result, The Royal Society for Public Health have said that the ‘fat letters’ are not helping combat obesity and should be stopped.
They added that parents of obese children should be “contacted by telephone prior to receipt of the letter”.
They also said that the message should not be one of ‘shame’, but of support, offering overweight children healthy food vouchers or better access to after-school activity clubs.
Shirley Cramer, chief executive of the Royal Society for Public Health, explained: “Parents… need to be provided with support, and our calls to reform the 'fat letter' are intended to make better use of this.
"Our research finds that only one-fifth of parents find the 'fat letter' useful and we believe that the letter should be seen as the beginning of a dialogue with parents, not simply flagging whether their child is obese."
But some people disagree with this.
For example,Telegraph columnist Julia Hartley-Brewer has controversially claimed that the letters are only failing to do their job because they "don’t tell parents the real truth".
Which, according to her, is that "you are failing your child".
She writes bluntly: “If you are the parent of a fat child, you are a bad parent.
“Did everyone get that? Because it really is very simple: if your child is overweight then that is your fault because you are not doing your job as a parent properly.”
She added: “If force feeding your child into obesity and ill health, a life on diabetes medication and far higher risks of cancer, heart disease, infertility and an early death isn’t child abuse, then what on earth is it?”
Claiming that parents are "100 per cent to blame" for their child’s weight, she went on to label them as child abusers.
Hartley-Brewer said: “Let’s stop all this namby-pamby, patronising rubbish about how these parents don’t know any better and are just as much victims themselves.
“They’re not victims. They are child abusers, in the same way that any parent who deliberately and knowingly harms the health of their child is an abuser.”
Unsurprisingly, her comments have divided the public.
Some have praised her for ‘telling it like it is’, while others have slammed her for failing to understand the problem from the point of view of the parents.
What do you think - are the parents of overweight children to blame, or is it not as simple as that?
Let us know your thoughts via Facebook or Twitter (@CloserOnline) now.