Children across the country are to be encouraged to try crossovers, pretzels, funky chickens and wing-dings in a bid to get healthy.

That may sound as though they are being enticed to gorge on the latest snacks, but they are actually being tempted to try a rather old-fashioned form of exercise - skipping.

Teachers are being urged to revive the art as part of the drive to increase health and fitness levels among children.

The British Heart Foundation is offering free skipping workshops for teachers, designed to link into the national curriculum, to show them skills that can be easily used by youngsters in the school playground, in PE lessons in the gym and even at home.

With physical inactivity doubling the risk of developing coronary heart diesase, the BHF is highlighting skipping as an ideal and cheap form of exercise for children.

When Trefonen primary school, near Oswestry, in Shropshire, introduced skipping in 2002, the headmaster was astonished at the interest. The school has won two world records for complex consecutive skips.

Teachers at the school believe it has helped with fitness levels of the pupils as well as improving discipline. In English children work on rhymes, limericks and raps that they can skip to, while in maths they work out how many skips can be done in a minute.

And it's not just the basic single rope skipping. They do long rope, partner and so-called 'Double Dutch'.

The initiative comes amid growing concern about childhood obesity, with youngsters the victims of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle and poor diet. The BHF recommends that all children aged 5-18 participate in physical activity of moderate intensity for at least one hour a day.

However, in England, only 55% of boys and 39% of girls are active for at lest an hour on five or more days a week.