Free gym membership for under-fives will be offered to thousands of families from today in the latest bid to tackle childhood obesity.

Parents are being encouraged to take babies and toddlers to get some exercise at a network of taxpayer-funded kiddie gyms.

Active play

Sessions to be offered will include dance, ball games and active play as part of a £200,000-a-year drive to divert the next generation away from adopting a couch potato lifestyle.

Liverpool launched the plan on 18th March 2009, which despite its sporting tradition also has some of Britains unhealthiest children.

New research has highlighted that, at the age of 11, half of boys and 40 per cent of girls growing up there are overweight, with one in 20 clinically obese!

To tackle this issue, Liverpool council is to offer free fitness sessions to all under-fives at 13 of its existing Lifestyle Centres in a programme entitled Futures.

Currently children aged from five to 16 can attend without charge, as can over-60s.

Pre school exercisers in Liverpool

Liverpool council will extended this idea and offer organised exercise classes to those of pre-school age along with a package of specially-tailored activities and trained instructors, taking the total number now eligible to 65,000.

The scheme is part-funded by the NHS and is sponsored by the ferry company Norfolkline.

In addition to free access for under-16s, worth over £300-a-year, around 1,600 low-income families will be given free membership so that older siblings and parents can make use of the fitness centres.

School-age children will also be able to use other council run fitness facilities, including swimming pools, astro-turf football pitches, tennis, squash and badminton courts and even hire equipment for free.

The initiative from Liverpool council comes amid increasingly imaginative attempts to get children active, during a time that traditional sports are once again being undermined by the sale of playing fields for housing development, still running at almost one a day.

Gyms for toddlers and young children are booming across the country, with an estimated two million five-to-11-year-olds now members.