ANDREW DENHOLM
THE SCOTTISH Executive yesterday urged Scots to take responsibility for the nation�s growing childhood obesity rates.
Tom McCabe, the deputy health minister, said the government had a key role to play in improving health.
But the minister insisted that parents, relatives and individuals all had to take responsibility.
More than one in five of Scotland�s pre-school children are overweight, according to NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (QIS).
The QIS figures, published in December, also revealed that by the age of 12, almost one in five Scots children were clinically obese.
"Scotland is not alone in experiencing a rapid rise in obesity. It has been on the increase in virtually all developed countries over the last two decades," said Mr McCabe. "We cannot, and are not, sitting back and doing nothing to stop this health time-bomb. Scotland�s children are our future and we must help them to develop the confidence, skills and self-esteem that is the basis of good health."
"By taking simple steps such as playing with their kids or walking them to school and choosing carefully what the family eats, parents and families can make big and lasting changes to the health of their children."
Shona Robison, the SNP�s health spokeswoman, has already lodged a Holyrood bill proposal to ban the marketing of unhealthy food and drinks to children and to outlaw their sale in school vending machines.
Yesterday, she unveiled a package of proposals, estimated to cost �80 million a year, which is to go before the SNP�s national conference in September.
As well as fitness tests and free school meals, it includes extending the Executive�s free fruit programme from P1 and P2 to all primary-level pupils, halting the sale of playing fields and free year-round access to council swimming pools.
Ms Robison said: "There needs to be a comprehensive approach to children�s diet and lifestyle instead of a scatter gun method.
"That is why the SNP is proposing to address issues both within and outwith schools.
"Our children�s health has been suffering as a result of bad diet and lack of exercise, and these issues must be addressed so that we can start to tackle health problems such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer which affect people in later life.
"For too long now, Scotland has been labelled the sick man of Europe," Ms Robison went on, "and it�s time that we turned our children�s fortunes around and gave them the tools to live a healthier lifestyle."