AS yet another report is published telling us that we should cut down our portions, have a tax on sugar and educate children in thinking carrots are a fun, desirable snack, I can't help but think they are missing something vital.

Not one of these reports talks about the huge drop in active travel over the last half century.

When I was a teenager my parents (who grew up post-war in lower-class families) would feed me as much as I could eat. KFC had just opened at the top of Peter's Hill in Winton and we'd have some every week. My dinner plate flowed over and in between I'd go out and drink full sugar drinks, crisps and chocolate.

And I was stick-thin.

Why? Because we didn't rely on motor transport. We'd think nothing of cycling five miles to visit a friend only to go straight out on our bikes.

Nowadays, we barely walk or cycle. Our continental cousins still do and they are not suffering the same obesity crisis. Indeed, the lack of independent mobility is having a huge effect on our children's well-being.

We need to engineer our roads for people. We need to set our children free.

MIKE CHALKLEY

Cowper Road, Bournemouth