Kids are inconsiderate creatures. Not satisfied with turning our lives upside down with their constant need for attention, food, water and love, they also insist on growing.

You turn your back for five minutes and your tiny tot mutates into some great Pop Tart-eating monster who can digest their own bodyweight in sugar every day.

Poor parents soon find themselves living in the shadow of their hulking offspring, dodging into the broom cupboard when they hear their delicate size 11s approaching for fear of bring crushed under foot or lost in the voluminous folds of their ridiculously baggy trousers.

Unfortunately, however, kids today are not just growing upwards, they are growing outwards. Obesity rates in children have doubled since 1982 and now as many as one in ten children under four is clinically obese.

Being overweight is no fun for a child. You get picked on, poked at and put at the back of the queue for everything. And it doesn't necessarily end there: childhood obesity can also have a devastating effect on long-term health.

Doctors are now warning of a worrying rise in diabetes among teenagers. Just last week it was revealed that three girls and a boy, all severely overweight, had been diagnosed with a type of diabetes usually only seen in adults over 40.

But what can we do to stop our children over-indulging? We live in a world where they are constantly bombarded with tantalising images of fashionable hi-tech, high-sugar, high-fat products, and where modern technology ensures the only bits of them to get any exercise are their bums and thumbs.

We can't just tell them to eat their greens. We need to be more creative. We need to use the new-fangled foibles of modern kids against them. Here are a few of my own fiendish thoughts:

u Tie your child's mobile phone to the back of your bike and pedal furiously down the street while yelling over your shoulder that Shazza/Bazza/Gazza (delete as applicable) is on the line. It is important to frisk your beloved for alternative mobiles, bleepers and other James Bond-style communication devices before saddling up and riding off into the sunset. Turning them upside down and shaking them until their gadgets rattle is, however, not condoned by the NSPCC.

u Insist that they may only communicate with their friends via semaphore. Make the flags out of heavy, double thickness cotton and the poles out of solid stainless steel and - hey presto! - a quick gab will leave them with biceps of which Popeye would be proud.

u Put washing up liquid all over the fridge door. It has been scientifically proven that kids are allergic to washing up - in fact boys are allergic to soaps and detergents of any kind - and will therefore not be able to touch the fridge for fear of actually having to help out around the house.

u Hide all the remote controls in the house. Anyone in their right mind would simply go and switch the appliance on manually, getting a minimal amount of exercise along the way. But most young people are not in their right minds because they live on a high octane diet of sugar and Lara Croft, which, perhaps not surprisingly, turns their brain cells into exploding kernels of popcorn. Kids will search the house for hours, trotting from room to room in ever decreasing circles calling plaintively for their remotes. It's pitiful, yes, but it burns those calories.

u While out shopping with the light of your life for trainers (their 12th pair), get a tissue out of your bag - preferably a slightly grey looking specimen that has been crumpled at the bottom of your mock-croc holdall for at least 18 months - spit on it and lunge towards your child saying "ooh, you are a mucky pup". If you use this Pavlovian method regularly, you will soon find that simply saying the word "tissue" will send your child sprinting down the street. This has the dual purpose of actually getting them to do some running in their running shoes while burning up approximately 122 calories per threatened spit 'n' scrub.

We could just lead by example, teaching our kids to look after themselves properly by looking after ourselves properly. Maybe if we didn't just flop in front of the telly every night with a remote control in one hand and a tube of Pringles in the other, they would grow into well rounded human beings without being too well rounded.

So come on all you parents out there. Let's join forces, let's play footie and netball and go jogging together, let's create broccoli appreciation societies and celebrate National Wheatgerm Week. Let's ... oh forget it, EastEnders is just starting.

Updated: 10:11 Tuesday, February 26, 2002