POOLSIDE observations by Wye Valley NHS Trust’s chief executive have prompted a gentle call to consider how many calories we’re taking in and the kind of example we’re setting our children.

Despite being away from work for a couple of weeks, Glen Burley’s holiday alongside fellow Brits reminded him of the challenges the NHS faces back at home.

“The trend for extra-wide sunbeds should have been a clue, but breakfast was a real eye-opener,” Mr Burley told the Hereford Times after returning from his holiday.

“I was totally shocked by both the volumes and the choices. Greedy adults creating greedy habits for their children, piles of pastries, sugary breakfast cereals, pancakes covered in syrup – this all amounted to thousands of calories.

“We’re fast becoming one of the fattest nations and the implications for the NHS are huge.

"In addition to health impacts such as diabetes, heart conditions, wear and tear on joints, all NHS services now have to provide bigger beds, chairs, and operating tables to cope with our super-sized population.”

Mr Burley’s comments are supported by figures published by Public Health England this week which show one in five children in reception years at school are either overweight or obese. This increases to one in three by the time they reach year 6.

“We need to think about the kind of example we’re setting our children now or we’re setting ourselves up for huge problems in the not-to-distant-future,” added Mr Burley, who heard someone on the news bemoaning cuts to local authority public health budgets and blaming these for being the root cause of the problem.

“While spending money on health promotion can be a good thing, it doesn’t absolve each of us of the need to take responsibility for our own health and wellbeing," he said.

"You don’t need a public health campaign to tell you that dosing children on sugar is a bad thing.

“As I witnessed on holiday, many of these bad habits are learned when we are young.

"We spend a lot of time getting nutrition right for infants but seem to lose focus as children get older when we can actually influence their habits more.

“We use the ‘helping you to help yourself’ line in our Trust strategy. We all need to own this one. Eat healthier, exercise more, encourage others to do so too and let’s not wait for the ‘nanny state’ to tell us to.

“Apologies if I’ve just inadvertently done so!”