IPPN

Published: 05 March 2011

IT’S a huge day in any child’s life. But First Communion has suddenly become an even bigger event for all the wrong reasons.

??Soaring levels of childhood obesity in Ireland mean one-in-five children can no longer fit into regular-sized Holy Communion outfits.

Irish retailers say eight and nine-year-olds are now so fat they have had to stock hundreds of extra made-to-order oversized dresses and trousers.

Some eight-year-old girls have ballooned so much, that they have no choice but to don enormous dresses with a 48" chest-size for their First Communion.

And increasing numbers of worryingly-obese boys of the same age are wearing trousers with waists up to 38" for their big day.

Doris Healy, who runs Communion costume retailers, The Sisters, in Tallaght in west Dublin, said 20% of her sales are now made up of oversized outfits.

"I’ve been running this business for 23 years and I’m alarmed at the size of the children now. Certainly 10 years ago everyone could fit into regular-sized outfits and it was very rare to see a child who was obese.

"But things have changed dramatically since then. A few years ago I started to notice that we were having big problems, because girls were coming in and we just didn’t have dresses big enough for them to fit into. The same was the case for boys. We didn’t have big enough trousers for them.