Nearly a quarter of the island’s reception age children are overweight - and one in five adults is obese.

These are some of the startling findings of an independent overview of the health and well-being of the population of the Isle of Man.

’A Healthy Island?’ is the first annual report to be compiled by director of public health Dr Henrietta Ewart and the first of its kind to be published since 2004. It uses data gleaned from a variety of sources including a random survey of 7,000 households.

The report reveals that 22.9% of reception age children aged four or give are overweight or obese. That compares with 22.15% in the UK.

Excess weight in childhood often persists into adulthood and that’s borne out by the fact that 41,000 adults, that’s 61.1% of the adult population, are overweight and one in five is obese.

More than a third of us (36.5%) feast on processed, convenience or fast food as their main meal more than once a week and one in six of us guzzle non-diet fizzy drinks more than once a week.

And the report exposes our sedentary lifestyle with 39.8% sitting for eight or more hours a day.

Poor dental health in children, which has long been raised as an issue, is confirmed with 27.6% of five-year-olds having experienced tooth decay, which the report notes is a problem that must be addressed.

Misuse of drugs and alcohol is another concern highlighted in ’A Healthy Island?’.

Some 8% of adults meet the definition of binge drinkers - that’s more than eight units a day for men or six for women.

But 13,500 adults - one in five of the adult population - are drinking at levels that may harm their health.

There were 20 drug-related deaths in the island between 2013 and 2015, significantly higher than the average in England. Some 80% of drug deaths were men.

Although the number of smokers is declining, tobacco use remains one of the largest reasons for premature death.

In the island, there are nearly 10,000 adults who smoke (14.5%), and two-thirds say they want to quit. Some 3.1% of 11- to 18-year-olds are smokers.

Worryingly, one in 10 women are smoking in pregnancy right up to the time they are due to give birth.

Some 73.6% of Manx residents are worried about inhaling second-hand smoke.

Turning to mental health, the report reveals that this is an issue for one in six of us at any one time - equating to 11,000 adults in the island.

Some 39% of 11- to 18-year-olds said they are worried always or most of the time and 13.3% said they are invariably unhappy, sad or depressed.

A total of 28% of young people said they had been bullied in the last 12 months, and 27% said it happened most days. And the form of bullying has changed, with cyber bullying increasing by 13%.

Just over 8% of adults have self-harmed. The suicide rate in the island is 10 per 100,000 population, a similar rate to England.

The report finds that 63% of the 176 deaths in the island from cardio-vascular disease are considered preventable. Cancer is the commonest form of death in under-75s. There were 340 deaths from cancer, three out of five considered preventable.

Life expectancy in the island is 79.6 years for men and 83.6 years for women, similar to England.

Most people, when asked, said they would prefer to die at home but only 40.6% of deaths occurred at home between 2013-15 which is worse than the English average.

Dr Ewart, who was appointed to director of public health in November last year after serving in an interim capacity since 2015, said: ’There is opportunity for improvement across most areas. Benchmarking against other areas helps us identify areas that should be a priority for us to work on. To achieve lasting change we need to ensure that we take a consistent and systematic approach.’