While healthcare and medical science makes great strides, one could almost despair when reading the results of the latest research into childhood obesity and cholesterol levels.

Many doctors now believe that there should be more testing of young people, before they even reach puberty. It is thought that there are now many more children falling into the high-risk groups.

Just whose fault is it and what is more important, who is going to take responsibility and do something about it?

We now know that one in ten children have cholestorol levels which are likely to impact negatively on their future health, probably for the rest of their lives. Do 'we' not owe them a better start in life than this?

When we learn of how families in the third world lose children because there is simply not enough food, we can understand that individual parents there are close to powerless, when trying to improve their children's prospects.

This is just not the case in our 'civilized' western society. Very few parents do not have the power to give their kids the food they need to thrive. Most of the time, the necessary food can enjoyed as an experience in itself. Indeed eating and drinking socially is considered a right rather than a privilege by a great many of us.

I have to ask myself often why it seems to be beyong the wit of many to guide their children into enjoying this relatively bounteous lifestyle, without turning into 'lard-buckets'.

People become rightly incensed when there is evidence of children being abused, whether it be physical, sexual or mental cruelty.

I am afraid that I perceive parents allowing their children to put their future health at risk, simply by over-indulgence, as a very similar form of abuse.

It perhaps does not have the intended cruelty of the other forms, but to think it is not as bad is like considering the results of a road accident to be 'better' than injuries sustained as the results of being beaten up.

I know of very few parents who do not say that they want the best for their children. A wonderful old-fashioned saying states that 'fine words butter no parsnips'.

Improving their long-term health prospects might well take more than reducing the amount of butter on the parsnips eaten by our up-coming generations.