5 times more girls drive than cycle to school

The country’s leading expert on obesity has revealed that five times more schoolgirls drive to school than ride a bicycle.

With a quarter of all three-year-olds classed as obese, consultant endocrinologist, Professor Donal O’Shea, who features in the RTÉ series The Obesity Clinic, has warned a generation of parents could end up burying their children in the future.

And he blames a drastic drop-off in day-to-day physical activity coupled with the rise in convenience food and soft drinks for the dramatic rise in the weight of the average Irish child in recent years.