Obesity risk of playtime cuts

SCHOOL breaktimes have been slashed by an hour over two decades, fuelling the ongoing problem of childhood obesity.

UCL’s Institute of Education said this means children have less opportunity to exercise.

Researchers said schools had restricted break times due to bad playground behaviour or to cram in more lessons. A quarter of secondary schools now have a lunch break of 35 minutes or less. The study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, compared data from more than 1,000 schools in 2017 to data from 2006 and 1995.