Walk down just about any street in the UK or go into any shopping centre you will see a lot of evidence of one of the biggest threats to our you people, child obesity. Statistics from recent studies show a worrying trend that if left un checked could lead to our younger generation being the first in human history to live to an average age younger than that of their parents.

Recent statistics suggest that one in three boys and one in four girls aged between the ages of two and nineteen are either overweight or obese. Some have argued that if this trend continues we could start to see similar levels to those in the United States, where a massive 63 percent of the population are overweight and a staggering 31 percent are clinically obese.

Much is being done to try to solve this problem with the government allocating almost £350 million to the Change4life campaign that is aiming to use TV advertising to raise awareness. Surely the key to this is education. We need to provide parents with all of the information and skills they need in order to first determine if their child is overweight and then to provide them with a healthy balanced diet that gives their body everything it needs but does not over load their system with excess calories that will ultimately be stored as fat.

This is not something that is just going to go away and it is up to all of us to ask what we can do to help. Our children are our most precious commodity and we should be doing everything we can to ensure they live a long and happy life.