MP Diane Abbott has called for better food labelling systems to help parents make better dietary choices to help tackle childhood obesity.

In Hackney 13 per cent of children aged four are medically obese and the figure rises to 24 per cent by the age of 10.

“There is a very real danger that significant numbers of today’s children will live shorter lives than their parents and spend more of their years in poor health,” said the Shadow Health Minister who is also MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.

“In truth families are victims of the fact that we all live a much more sedentary life and eat much more processed food then we did when the National Health Service was originally set up,” she added during a House of Commons debate.

“Modern parents worry about “stranger danger” and allowing their children to run about in the streets all day, so modern children spend increasing amounts of time indoors watching television and playing computer games.”