The government's commitment to tackle childhood obesity has been thrown into doubt because Glasgow's primary schools have only a handful of PE teachers.

Figures released by the Scottish Executive show that in 2005 there were just three teachers with a principal subject of PE between Glasgow's 178 primary schools. This follows a recent report which showed that only 5 per cent of primary schools in Scotland were receiving the minimum requirement of two hours of physical education each week.

Critics called for an urgent recruitment drive, warning that failure to address the shortage would result in crippling health and social problems.

However, the executive insisted it was on course to meet its target of putting an additional 400 PE teachers into primary and secondary schools by next year.