The Government's adviser on children's physical education has backed The Observer's demand that every pupil have at least two hours of school sport a week by 2006.
So serious is the epidemic of overweight youngsters that Ministers must be more ambitious in their targets for the amount of activity youngsters do at school, said Crichton Casbon. There is 'no reason' why our campaign's central recommendation to ensure that all youngsters receive at least two hours of exercise cannot be achieved, said the physical education consultant to the Government's exam regulator.
Ministers have set a target of 75 percent of schoolchildren by 2006, an aspiration that critics claim is nowhere near high enough. Official figures show that only about one-third of pupils get at least the two hours of sport needed to stop them becoming 'couch potatoes'.
Casbon, PE adviser to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), has warned Ministers that they can offer no valid excuses if they shy away from demands for all children to receive two hours.
Following a 30-month investigation into school sports, the QCA has collected evidence to suggest the higher target is attainable.
'There is no reason why we can't achieve that target from the progress we have made in the past few years,' Casbon said.
The exam regulator wants the existing GCSE in PE to be revamped to include more physical activity, to make the qualification more attractive to young people. England captain David Beckham's huge success on the pitch should be used to entice more pupils to take the qualification.
'Take David Beckham. He is one of the most intelligent footballers in the world. He has a brain that few people can match on the field and we need to look at that,' said Casbon.
New data collated by the QCA on exercise and behaviour reveals that providing lunchtime activity at school dramatically reduces classroom disruption.
The importance to children's health of school sports will also be hammered home this week in a report from the Government's Health Development Agency, which has conducted a review of research on childhood obesity.
This has shown that, alongside changing the diet of children and parents playing a bigger role in enforcing healthy eating patterns, schools must also offer more physical activity, and discourage 'prolonged sedentary behaviour'. The report is to be unveiled on Tuesday, with the Public Health Minister, Melanie Johnson, stressing the need to tackle the epidemic of young people who are overweight or obese.
The uncomfortable truth is that the greatest problems occur in the inner cities, where youngsters are deprived of both a healthy diet and places where they can run about or do sport.
A recent study carried out by researchers among schoolchildren in east London showed that 40 percent suffered physical and mental ill health, partly as a result of their inactivity.
Although the Year 7 pupils, aged 12 to 13, met the national average rates of activity, that dropped significantly by the time they reached Year 9, and were 14 to 15. Researchers from Queen Mary College, University of London, found that girls in particular appear to drop sports as they move into their teenage years. One fifth of the 3,000 children surveyed were obese, well above the national average.
