New research shows although they may be lighter on the scales than their Polynesian and European classmates, Asian and Indian children store more fat on their bodies.
Now schools have been asked to step in and help prevent the looming obesity epidemic.
A study of 1,200 school children raised concerns that too few Asian and Indian children are being encouraged to exercise and showed that their body fat levels are the highest.
"If you took say an Asian child and a European child with the same height and weight, the Asian child would generally have around 7% more body fat and that's quite an extreme difference so it's obviously a very worrying sign for us," says AUT researcher Scott Duncan.
The study says Asian and Indian children are in an ethnic group that has been ignored when it comes to child obesity.
"They are quite light and they have small muscles and they look quite slim. But when you look at the actual body fat of those Asian children, some of them can actually be surprisingly high and that's why they can get missed," says Duncan.
Indian children store their body fat around the abdomen rather than the hips and no-one knows exactly why.
Celia Murphy from the Obesity Action Coalition says fat that is stored around the middle is more dangerous.
"It's more metabolically active and it causes more problems," says Murphy.
Adopting a fat and sugar-laden western diet is also to blame as are cultural differences especially for Indian girls, who the study shows have the highest body fat and exercise the least.
"It may not be acceptable for them in their own country to play sport but they may well dance in their own country and there isn't that same opportunity here for them to get that same level of activity," says Murphy.
Researchers are now calling for diet and exercise policies tailor-made for schools and communities to get Asian children moving.
