Labour hopes gym will fix it for fat UK

Feeling fat after Christmas? Pondering a New Year resolution to re-establish visual contact with your feet? Fear not, help is at hand - the Government is to set Britons daily exercise targets in the latest attempt to get the country off its collective couch.

A draft report by Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, urges ministers to tell people what physical activity they should engage in and for how long

A major advertising campaign setting out daily exercise regimes - similar to the Government's drive to promote healthy eating - is being prepared to coincide with the publication of the report early in the spring.

The recommended regimes would not necessarily require gym membership or even participation in sports.

Tessa Jowell, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, yesterday hinted at the new targets when she said that under a third of youngsters were not getting enough exercise and 15 per cent of teenagers were now clinically obese. Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, Ms Jowell confirmed that ministers were looking at a "range of steps" to tackle the country's worsening obesity crisis.