Children spending summer indoors like ‘ battery hens’

CHILDREN are living like ‘battery hens’ as they spend their summer holidays cooped up indoors on computers and phones, the children’s commissioner has warned.

Anne Longfield said ‘ online summers’ were damaging youngsters’ mental health and causing spikes in obesity.

She called for radical action to boost outdoor activities, including revamping play areas and parks and encouraging GPs to recommend ‘play on prescription’.

Money raised through the Government’s ‘ sugar tax’ should be used to fund attractive play projects, Mrs Longfield added. ‘We all remember how important the long school holidays were,’ she said. ‘But there is a sense that children are retreating into their homes, and we are seeing the consequences in terms of health, mental health, marginalisation from school and violence.

‘Parents told me in the playground that if they hadn’t been there, the children would have been in the house in what was described to me as a “battery hen existence” for so many kids – spending vast amounts of time during a hot summer online.’

She told The Observer: ‘A very straightforward, doable way of tackling these issues would be to have a major programme of investment in play activities ... during school holidays.’

A study last year found that, in the holidays, primary school children lost 80 per cent of the fitness gained in term time. Research has also revealed that half of seven-year- olds do not achieve the goal of at least 60 minutes exercise every day.

Sugar tax returns, expected to reach £240million this year, are currently earmarked for school breakfast clubs and sports.

Sarah Wollaston, chairman of the Commons health committee, said providing play facilities ‘could save money down the line’.