NHS may give dance lessons to fight the fat

Dance classes are to be provided on the National Health Service in a bid to tackle declining fitness levels and counter a national obesity crisis.

People leading sedentary lifestyles will be encouraged to take up free tango, salsa and other dance lessons in a campaign to be launched across England and Wales tomorrow.

The deployment of the new scheme by Caroline Flint, the Public Health minister, follows the completion of 10 trials across the country since 2004 which have succeeded in encouraging people to exercise more.

The trials, which cost £2.5m, were said by the Department of Health to have achieved success across the generations, from obese children to underactive pensioners.

A spokesman for the health department said: "The pilot programme demonstrated that physical activity interventions were cost effective and saved the NHS money in the long run."