In recent decades, Scotland has had a disappointingly poor health record compared to other Western European countries. While there have been improvements in recent years, the health of children and young people remains a key concern, particularly with regard to risk-taking behaviour.

Some of the most worrying statistics relating to young people's health and wellbeing include:

• a third of 12-15-year-olds in Scotland are overweight or obese
• rates of chlamydia in young people have more than doubled in a decade
• 15-year-olds in Scotland have the highest rate of smoking in Europe
• more than a third of Scottish 15-year-olds say that they have used drugs
• alcohol-related accidents are one of the leading causes of death in young people aged 15-24
• suicide is now the biggest killer of young men in Scotland.

The health of children and young people in Scotland is closely linked to poverty, and the scale of this problem was highlighted in the Poverty in Scotland report in 2007. This research estimated that 240,000 children are living in poverty in Scotland, with almost one in eight children living in absolute poverty. One in four children lives in a one-parent household.

As the Chief Medical Officer noted in his 2006 Annual Report, poverty has clear implications for many thousands of children and their current and future state of health.