Today, children expend about 600 calories per day less in physical activity than 50 years ago and recent evidence confirms that the sedentary lifestyle is well established even in pre-school children. Television watching and computer games contribute and there has been a large increase in car journeys undertaken on behalf of children. Especially worrying is the marked decline in physical activity during adolescence among girls and a more marked increase in waist size in girls compared with boys. This increasingly sedentary environment contributes greatly to the problems of obesity in children.
