15 October 2007
The Prime Minister has called upon parents and teachers to help tackle the issue of childhood obesity through diet and sport.
Speaking to the BBC Breakfast programme this morning, Mr Brown said the Government was determined to "act early" by increasing fitness activities in schools and asking parents to ensure that "diets are as good as possible". Plans to raise pupil involvement in sport to five hours per week "will start to make a difference" to obesity levels, he said.
The PM said:
"I want to see a young nation growing up that is healthy and fit and we will do everything in our power to make it possible for people to know the problem and to be able to deal with it quickly…so we’re going to act early; we’re going to intervene early in the future and we’re going to make sure parents, when children are at an early age, realise there are problems ahead."
Mr Brown’s comments came during a visit to a special breakfast club at Harris Girls’ Academy in South London. Accompanied by Children’s minister Ed Balls and athlete Kelly Holmes, the PM chatted with students playing sport prior to the start of classes.
Yesterday Health Secretary Alan Johnson called obesity a "potential crisis on the scale of climate change". The Department of Health is expected to release its Foresight report on obesity later this week.
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