Charity Bids To Tackle Child Obesity

The charity Chest Heart & Stroke (NICHS) is expanding its health program in schools after research showed that children in Northern Ireland were among the least active in the UK.

The University College London study found that only 43% of seven-year-olds had the recommended one hour of exercise each day. The research showed that girls fared worse than boys.

Chief executive Andrew Dougal said a time bomb was "being stored up for the future".
"In combination with too little exercise, too many children are eating poor diets which are high in fat, salt and sugar," Mr Dougal said.

"It's particularly worrying that the exercise survey was carried out among seven-year-olds, because children tend to become less, rather than more active as they become older."

He said childhood obesity in Northern Ireland had increased from 27% in 2010-2011 to 31% in 2011-2012 and was likely to rise further.

Photo by Toby Alter