The chairman of the Commons health select committee, David Hinchliffe, today hit back at doctors who claimed MPs were wrong to blame obesity for the death of a three-year-old girl.

Doctors speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme argued that the child, who featured in the committee's report into childhood obesity published in May, had in fact been suffering from a genetic disorder which meant she constantly felt hungry.

They also went on to criticise the committee of being "duped" by pressure groups when it took evidence for its influential report published last month.

But Mr Hinchliffe today defended the integrity of the committee and the information it had been given about the reasons behind the young girl's death.

He said the committee had relied on evidence from consultant paediatrician Dr Elizabeth McKenzie, who had treated the child at the Royal London hospital.

He said: "In our report we stuck completely to what Dr McKenzie had said in her written evidence to us. We didn't embellish it in any way. She said one child, a girl, had died from heart failure secondary to extreme obesity. To suggest that we implied that the child had died as a consequence of being fed too much by her parents was untrue . What the media decide to do is up to the media."

Mr Hinchliffe also rejected criticism by Dr Sadaf Farooqi from Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge and nutrition expert Professor Tom Sanders from King's College London, that MPs had been "duped" by pressure groups when they drew up their report and had failed to take wider scientific evidence from experts - including Addenbrookes. .

He said MPs took evidence from a colleague of Dr Farooqui's in December. Mr Hinchliffe added: "I think the integrity of the committee is intact. I am a bit cross that the committee finds itself in the middle of medical politics between the Addenbrookes and the Royal London."