Professor John Ashton, appointed President of the UK’s Faculty of Public Health in July 2013, has suggested children need to walk at least quarter of a mile each day to school keep fit and prevent obesity.

UK National Health Service statistics have shown that between 2000 and 2009 in England and Wale, the number of 5 to 19 year olds admitted to hospital with obesity related issues have increased from 872 to 3,806.

The Telegraph newspaper quotes Prof. Ashton as saying, “public health efforts must focus on town planning as much as on general health” and proposing drop-off points a ‘quarter-mile’ from school gates.

“One of the things we should be doing is really strictly prohibiting cars stopping outside school to drop kids off but having drop-off points, if at all, a few hundred yards away so at least the children get to walk a quarter of a mile each day from the dropping-off point … it would make a difference,” he told the newspaper