Romania leads the way in the general state of children’s’ health | Photo Credit: AFP

In 2017, 95.9 per cent of children under 16 living in the European Union were considered to be in good or very good general health. According to a study published by Eurostat, 95.2 per cent had no health problems limiting their activity.

Geographical variations exist, however. Romania leads the way in the general state of children’s’ health, with 99.4 per cent of children under 16 considered in good or very good health. This drops to 90.2 per cent in Portugal. Note that countries such as France (95.1 per cent), Luxembourg (95.1 per cent), the Netherlands (95.3 per cent) and the UK (94.9 per cent) fall below the European average.

When it comes to health problems limiting activities, Italy is the EU’s leader, as 99.2 per cent of children have no limitations in activity due to health problems, with 98.8 per cent of children in good or very good health.

Latvia is the only country to achieve double figures in its percentage of children with limitations in activity caused by health problems, with 11.4 per cent experiencing moderate limitations. This is unusually high compared to other EU countries but is in line with the country’s percentage of children in good or very good health, which is relatively low compared to the European average (90.7 per cent), and its percentage of children with no limitations, at 87.6 per cent.

Eurostat observed that the percentage of children in good or very good general health falls slightly with age. While 96.5 per cent of children under five were considered to be in good or very good general health, this dropped to 95.2 per cent for those aged ten to fifteen. There are some exceptions, however, with countries showing the opposite tendency including Ireland (96.4 per cent vs 96.5 per cent), Hungary (94.9 per cent / 95.5 per cent) and Poland (93.1 per cent / 94.3 per cent).