I use the following approach, but be wary if you're working with wide characters. See XML::Twig, HTML::Table, and wide characters for more information.

use warnings;
use strict;
use XML::Twig;
use HTML::Table;

my @data = (
    { age => 12, weight => 200 },
    { age => 22, weight => 100 }
);

my @table = map { [ @{$_}{qw(age weight)} ] } @data;

my $table = HTML::Table->new(\@table);
my $new_elt = XML::Twig::Elt->new('table_test');
$new_elt->set_inner_xml($table->getTable());

my $twig = XML::Twig->new(pretty_print => 'indented');
$twig->set_root($new_elt);
$twig->flush();
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