IT may seem a tiny drop, but the decrease from seven to 6.4 per cent for child obesity in Oxfordshire is hopefully hugely significant.

Yes, it is only a drop of 0.6 percentage points, but it is a drop of 8.5 per cent in a year.

Childhood obesity is not an issue of the nanny state. There have been, admittedly, some frankly barmy assessments of perfectly healthy schoolchildren being classed as obese and they did not help the argument being put forward by health officials.

But we have long known in this country that there is a growing problem (no pun intended) with obesity. Part of it is a more sedentary lifestyle with greater creature comforts, some of it the food that is available and some of it, to be brutally honest, is just out and out sloth.

This is right across society but why the officials are targeting children is obvious. Some people think there is no harm being a little bigger as a child with the misguided belief they are likely to ‘grow’ into their bodies or will kick into a healthy lifestyle when they are an adult.

But it is truism that habits developed in childhood are hard to break, and that goes for both poor diet choices and a fleeting interest in physical activity.

Teach the children right early on and hopefully that sets them up for life.

Whilst we cannot completely abandon the push against adult obesity, there is a danger that for a determined chunk of grown-ups that battle is lost.

Again, without resorting to a pun, hopefully in the future when we review the statistics of our society’s average weight, today’s adults will be the bulge in the graph, with it dropping away for the generations to come.

That is why this drop, however seemingly marginal, is hopefully a sign that the work of our health officials, campaigners and, yes, you the parents, is working, and is a step in the right direction.