Grandparents urged to help children as fitness continues to fall

The level of children’s fitness is falling by up to 9 per cent every decade.

It’s not just children who are worrying England’s Chief Medical Officer as up to 70 per cent of adults are also not doing the recommended minimum amount of physical activity.

Now, Sir Liam Donaldson has said that the harm caused by this inactivity has ‘been ignored for too long and it is now time for action’.

He is calling for the government to start fitness assessments for every child in secondary schools and that we must all get our children moving to improve their future health.

In his newly published 2009 report looking at the state of public health, Donaldson is also calling for grandparents to be important assets to healthy childhoods.

He said: “Childhood is a vital time for health. Grandparents are a great asset in a child’s development. When policy on children’s health is being developed the role of grandparents should form part of the thinking. Developing the role of grandparents as educators and mentors of their grand-children’s health could add an important new dimension, as well as benefiting their own health.”