This is a problem that just seems to get worse. The easy availability of unhealthy food and the increased lethargy of our youth as led to shocking reports of obese children as young as three years old. There have even been cases in the news where the authorities have tried to remove children from their parents for their own health, because they are so morbidly overweight.

A recent report released by the Medical Research Council (MRC) claims that many parents don’t even realise that their children are in danger. Dr Susan Jebb from the Human Research Unit at the MRC claims that while parents understand that lack of exercise and unhealthy diet contribute to childhood obesity, they “don’t necessarily realise that it applies to their child.”

“More than 40 per cent of children over the age of six choose their own evening meal on half of all occasions but they lack the skills to choose wisely,” she told the BBC last month. “It’s not surprising that parents try to avoid conflict to make a pleasant atmosphere at home, but it leads to a lack of exposure and familiarity with different foods.”

A nine-week community programme that teaches children and their families about nutrition and diet has achieved remarkable results one year on. The Mend programme, (which stands for Mind, Exercise, Nutrition, Do-It!) involved 107 moderately obese children initially, although about 1,000 have now benefited from the scheme. The project involved the whole family and taught them healthy attitudes. This even included accompanying mothers on their weekly trips to the supermarket.

The initial group were split into two, with one half receiving no intervention. After six months, the children who had followed the Mend programme, had waist measurements on average 4cm smaller than those who didn’t. And after a year, the children were still showing the benefits of the lessons learned at Mend. It is now hoped that 26,000 children and their families can take part in 300 areas of Great Britain. The scheme will be funded by the Big Lottery Fund, Sainsbury’s and Sport England.

The focus of the programme was not just on losing weight but also on approaching life in a healthy way. Paul Sacher, research director of Mend and an honorary specialist dietician at Great Ormond Street Hospital said, “We do measure (the children) but their weight is just one of the things we measure. It’s more about living healthily. We were delighted to see that the results were largely sustained at 12 months. Obviously sustaining a healthy lifestyle is the Holy Grail of health and fitness.”

One of the secrets of Mend’s success was that they presented healthy diet and exercise to children in a way they could readily appreciate. For example they encouraged them with the thought of being able to fit into fashionable clothes or of not being picked last for team sports.

Getting into the mindset of the children is also behind the idea of five Norfolk schools that plan to appoint a mentor to encourage teenage girls to take part in more sports. The mentor will work closely with the region’s schools to find out why so many 14-16-year-old girls lose interest in physical education.

Jenny Day, the development manager for the Breckland School Sports Partnership, which is behind the plan, said, “Girls of this age are losing interest and we want to have somebody to support and help them. The mentor will be finding out the reasons why they don’t like PE, perhaps through arranging alternative activities such as trampolining.”

Other ideas put forward by Day included allowing girls to wear tracksuit bottoms instead of shorts or skirts, offering aerobics, yoga and Pilates classes as well as single-sex PE lessons. Each of the five schools involved in the scheme will pick around 10 girls from Year 9 to take part. If successful, the scheme will continue for another year. Once again, the scheme will be funded by lottery cash.

But there are concerns that lottery funding for these types of project will be endangered by, ironically, the London Olympic of 2012. Tessa Jowell controversially announced in March that the projected cost of the Games had risen by almost four times the original forecast to a staggering £9.35bn and that an extra £675m of the shortfall would have to come from the lottery good causes fund.

The Chief Executive of the Central Council of Physical Recreation, Tim Lamb, fears that this will result in taking money away from community sports, he described it as a case of “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” This is fiercely denied by the government, which points out that millions of young people will be inspired by the Olympics to take up more sport and exercise and that this in itself could save the state millions of pounds. There is evidence to support this, following the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, participation in sport doubled.

It is estimated that obesity costs the nation £7bn a year. But the cost of children not taking part in sports is not merely financial, according to a report conducted by researched from Oxford University, released last month. The report found that the government’s goal of getting children to play a minimum of two hours a week of sports was grossly inadequate and could even lead to children – boys especially – underachieving in class and even drifting into crime.

Professor Ann Buchanan said in the report “Barriers to Boys’ Attainment” that sports should be done daily in state schools, as it is in many private ones. “Sports is good for the brain and a positive way of using energy,” she said. The report points out that competitive sports are particularly important for boys who are under-achieving in class as thy can boost morale and lead to greater confidence.

And as the Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali said at a conference organised by the Royal Society of Medicine last month, “Rather than slapping Asbos on boys we have to make sure they have physical activities to channel their energies in schools.”

But last year, a report showed that two-thirds of 15 and 16-year-olds no longer play any kind of competitive sport. One of the reasons for this is due to the politically correct attitude that it is demoralising for children to lose and “everyone must have prizes”. The loss of playing fields is another significant factor, as many as 2,540 school and community sites have disappeared since 1997 – a rate of one a day under Labour.

Is the government doing enough to try and turn the tide on childhood obesity? Understandably, the shadow health minister Andrew Murrison doesn’t think so. “There is no question that the government has not done enough and what they have done has not been done quickly enough. When it comes to implementation they have failed so far,” he told the BBC last month.

Dr David Haslam, clinical director of the National Obesity Forum was a little kinder, saying that obesity had been a priority for the government, although he pointed out that nothing to date had made any difference to the situation, because of a lack of joined-up thinking. “At least they’re putting measures in place to try and actively do something,” he said optimistically.

But there have been some improvements. Seven years ago, Tony Blair pledged that every child would have the right to two hours of sports a week and this is now the case for 80 per cent of UK pupils. The government has now pledged to double the time children spend playing sports in schools to four hours a week by 2010. This, combined with greater understanding of nutrition at home and at school, plus firmer controls over marketing of unhealthy foods to children by food companies may yet turn the tide on obesity.

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